Trouble From Behind
by Kisshin-tama Nippi
Summary: Harry Potter Xover, NaruSasu soft BL. The shinobi world shattered five years ago, and the pieces are still scattered. When Sasuke and Naruto are brought together for an extra difficult mission, it will all come to a head, whether they like it or not.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.

AN: I'm looking for a beta for this story! Mostly someone who can concentrate on characterization and conveying emotion, on top of the general things, because I can only read my own writing so many times before I start to ignore what doesn't make sense. Anyway… rated T for swearing, shounen-ai, and violence. Written from Sasuke's point of view.

* * *

_My adorable Natalie:_

_I miss you every day that I am forced to be apart from you. It seems that no matter how much I labor, I won't be able to save up enough for our wedding, and what's worse, I feel that my education here will never end, at the pace it is heading. My teachers are such slave drivers, dolling out more work at each opportunity. My father has agreed to let me wed you, if you will have me and your father agrees, but if we never see each other, it will be pointless to have his blessing._

_Oh, how my heart longs for you, Natalie. I wish only to return with you to the English countryside before your birthday._

_Your would-be spouse,_

_Simon._

I sighed heavily, and crumpled the flowery-scented, pink sheet of paper into a ball. I tossed it carelessly, and it bounced off the wall and fell right back into my lap. Did Naruto have to send such _embarrassing_ messages? Sure, when he used stuff like that, it was really easy to decipher the general meaning—

Sasuke:

I'm coming soon. I've got an ANBU job. It involves a school, I don't know the duration. We'll have to partner up. LOTS OF MONEY. Expenses fully paid. If you want to do it and aren't busy, then we'll be heading to England. I'll see you by your birthday.

Naruto.

— (instead of if he used, perhaps, mixed-in letters), but really… And what's worse, _I_ was the one who had to be the girl! It was just insulting to my Uchiha pride!

With another long, lung-clearing sigh, I pulled myself to my feet, leaving the crumpled letter on the small kitchen table, and set about the kitchen to make coffee. My birthday was only a day away – I wondered how I hadn't known Naruto was staying so close – so I would need to clean and pack by then. As I waited for the coffee-maker to do its thing, I stared blearily at the speckled granite counter-top. _It's been a long time since I saw Naruto,_ I thought. _I wonder if he looks any different._

I nearly drifted off, supporting my body with both hands against the counter, elbows locked. As the coffee machine suddenly gargled hotly right next to my ear, I jumped slightly, and my knee came up, hand already reaching for the kunai strapped to my left shin, under my pajama pants. I shook my head – hyper awareness and high-strung nerves didn't fade with time, I supposed. Heck, I was nearly seventeen; it had been four whole years since the battle in which the shinobi world had fallen apart. Normally, my career as a shinobi would be nearing the end of its prime by this age. Maybe I was doomed to be jumpy and expecting of assassination right up until I died, reduced to a lame old man with a bad case of paranoia. _What a pathetic end to the great Uchiha clan that would be,_ I mused.

As the coffee pot continued its rather disruptive brewing, I wandered into the bedroom of my tiny three-room apartment, looking for the broom. If I remembered correctly, I left it in here when… Ah. Right there. Just as I left it – fuuma shuriken duct taped to the handle and all. Grumbling about useless ideas, I grabbed a kunai off the top of his dresser and began cutting at the tape, trying just to get it into a state where I could slide the shuriken off. The razor-sharp edge of the kunai quickly cut the tape away, and I folded the shuriken, tossing it carelessly onto my rumpled bedspread. I set about sweeping the scattered makibishi (and the dust-bunnies) out of my hallway and into one pile in the corner of the living room, next to the couch, so I could pick them up later. I plucked the fluffy balls of dust off of the end of the broom, and dropped them back onto the pile. Yes, the great Uchiha Sasuke's house was a damn mess, as the further scattered ninja supplies – ANBU mask and katana on top of the TV, soldier pills herded into one place by a metal cookie sheet on the kitchen counter, hitae-ate hanging from the light fixture next to the door – could attest very clearly to. I had no intention of cleaning it all up just because Naruto was coming over, but since I _was_ going on a mission for an unknown length of time (and from my experience, whenever it's unknown, it's gonna be long), it would be good to pack all of my stuff.

Ahh… It would be good to be back in ANBU armor after nearly a whole year idle. Maybe it's just nostalgia, or maybe I'm just crazy, but I missed more than anything the early years of my shinobi life that I had spent running through forests and fighting enemy shinobi. I didn't much miss Konoha – probably because it hadn't meant anything really important to me – and neither was I hung up over the scattering of my ex-classmates, but I had made an effort to keep in touch with Naruto.

Uzumaki Naruto. The only person I had ever really considered a friend or a partner or a person worth hanging out with. The only friend whom I had once tried to kill, and whom I had been trying to make it up to ever since. The only person who didn't _care_ if I made it up, the only person who had long-since forgiven me for that mistake. It made my stomach flip, that somebody cared for me in the sort of tough-love way that Naruto did, in spite of the things I had tried to pull – running away from Konoha, I knew, had been the worst thing I had ever gotten myself into. It was only dumb luck that I realized the mistake, and came back before I couldn't.

As I cleaned randomly, putting things that I thought I might need in a pile on the couch, I also made a list of things I needed to do before we left: pack, buy a new jar to put the soldier pills in, give all the perishables in my house to my needy old-woman neighbor, stop the mail, electricity, phone-stuff, and running water (since I wasn't in the mood to move all of my crap, I had to at least keep paying the rent), and quit my part-time job at the convenience store across the street. Oh, hell. _This mission better be worth a bundle,_ I thought miserably. That Mexican bastard had been _so_ reluctant to let me work there.

I had just tacked the list onto the fridge and poured myself a cup of coffee, when I realized what else I needed to add: buy a duffel bag. There's a limit to how many scrolls you can seal into other scrolls, after all. And I didn't fancy trying to explain to some civilian why I was carrying around a bag of rolled-up paper. Things like weapons, of course, would be sealed up, but clothes you kind of need to keep out, in order to be inconspicuous. I knew where England was, and it was quite a ways from California (don't ask me how I ended up in LA – it just happened), so no matter how I looked at it we'd be taking a plane. They don't like weapons on the plane. Just another reason that shinobi aren't meant to _fly_. You think they would notice if I replaced the cord of my headphones with steel wire and slid a senbon up a hollow popsicle stick? Hey, a lot of stuff can happen between baggage drop-off and baggage claim!

With a dramatic sigh, I quickly swallowed the remainder of the scorching coffee – my throat is too tough after years of goukakkyu no jutsu to be burnt by just some hot liquid – and snatched the list off the fridge, adding duffel bag to the list. I grabbed my keys off the coat rack next to the door, and locked it quickly on my way out. I paused outside, listening for the telltale signs of my neighbor – yeah, she was home. Cool, no need to chase her down when I got back. I headed downstairs at as quick a walk I could manage without the front desk guy getting mad because I was running in the lobby, and jogged across the street to the convenience store. Might as well not procrastinate my resignation… but I'd take advantage of my meager employee discount first.

-

Alright. So resigning from that job was distinctly different from all the times I've been fired. The manager was mad, either way, but this time it was more of a… _glad_ mad, instead of the sorry mad I usually get. Well, that's interesting. The guy started swearing at me in Spanish before I even finished talking. I hope he forgets my face before I get back from this mission, or I'm gonna have to use henge to go shopping from now on.

I dropped the duffel bag next to the wall on my way into the kitchen, and set the bottle on the table. I poured myself another glass of coffee, and zapped it in the microwave for a couple seconds, to get it back to that near-boiling temperature that was the only thing my throat wasn't numb to. I took a position halfway between the kitchen and the living room, and just stared around, trying to figure out what else I would need. ANBU stuff, weapons, clothes… Not food, there was no way I'd pack food… Oh right, I might want to dig out that scroll I stole a while back from Orochimaru, on techniques combined with summonings. I still hadn't opened it, but on a mission like this, it seemed like I would either have lots of spare time, or I'd need to learn a few new things.

So all that stuff went in the bag. My weapons and ANBU gear I put into scrolls, and tucked those into the corner of the bag. Hopefully they wouldn't come across as strange enough to look twice at at the airport. I jammed my spare clothes kinda haphazardly into the duffel bag, and then threw it next to the door – I was ready to leave as soon as Naruto knocked on that door tomorrow morning. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and jumped into bed, to lie awake listening to the teenagers upstairs bang their bed against the wall for a couple hours before I could fall asleep. Actually, I really couldn't wait to get away from my apartment.

-

I woke up the next morning with a violent start. Something had just disturbed me quite abruptly from my well-earned sleep, as the kunai in my hand attested to. I actually couldn't remember where that had come from – I didn't keep sharp things in bed, as a rule. I glanced around quickly, but didn't see anything out of place. _Must have just been a bad dream,_ I thought, climbing out of bed. I glanced at my watch – seven _fifty_? Naruto could be here at any second!

This was a bad way to start a day, no matter how I looked at it. I scrambled out of bed and ran into the kitchen, peeling the gross used coffee filter out of the coffee machine and tossing it into the garbage. I pulled out a new one, and dumped out the pot, rinsing it quickly under the faucet. As soon as the coffee was doing its hissy-gargling thing, I began digging through the cupboard for something to eat – oh, that's right, I gave most everything to Ms. Old-Lady-Next-Door. I came up with cup ramen (chicken flavor; wow, I almost miss Ichiraku's), and decided that that was as good as it was gonna get. So then the microwave joined the steadily-growing clamor in my kitchen, the dull hum mostly tuned out after the first two seconds. And of course, _then_ the doorbell rang, just as I had my comb thoroughly caught in my hair and my shirt off.

I stared out through the little hidey-hole – no need to embarrass myself in front of the front-desk guy or give the laundry girl extra fuel for her crush – but didn't see anyone. Oh, great – so it was some stranger playing funny, Naruto playing funny, or my short little neighbor lady. I could hear her cooing from under the door; "Sauce-kay, I brought over a thank-you present that I made with the things you gave me!" Deciding to throw modesty to the wind, I undid the deadbolt and opened the door.

There she stood, with her paper-plate of sugar cookies covered in what looked distinctly like a hairnet. I could barely suppress a shudder at the image that _that _brought about. She fluttered her shiny, pink eyelids at me in a way that could have been taken for coy on anyone but my old neighbor lady, and offered the plate of cookies. "Do have a good time on your trip, all right?" she said delightedly. I was still stuck on naming the particular shade of green that she was wearing, so I just nodded. She turned back to her own room, waving over her shoulder, and I waved back dazedly, and shut the door.

_Ah. Neighbor-lady lime,_ I thought, fully satisfied. The cookies I set on the table and removed the hairnet from, crumpling it up gingerly and removing it to the trash can. I considered pouring some scorching coffee overtop to sterilize and melt the thing, but didn't, because that would be a waste of coffee, and it wasn't hot yet – unlike the water for my instant ramen.

As I ate my considerably lame breakfast, I stared at the cookies, my watch, and the lights on the coffee pot in alternation. Santa-shaped sugar cookie… eight sixteen… seventy percent done. Star-shaped sugar cookie… eight sixteen and thirty seconds… seventy-two percent done. This was going nowhere fast – I hoped Naruto would show up soon.

Your wish is my command, they might say – I had no sooner poured myself a cup of newly-brewed coffee than I heard another knock at the door. I got up hurriedly, not bothering to pick my chair up as I kicked it over accidentally, and peeked through the tiny glass bubble. Uhh… somebody's nose hair was staring right back at me. Well, that _had_ to be Naruto; nobody else in this apartment complex would do something so socially unacceptable as that to somebody who had a reputation like mine – as a dangerous, emotionally-unstable weirdo. I'm not saying that's true, I'm just saying that that's the information I gathered when I used henge one time. But I'm not really that vain to… This is coming out wrong, I'll stop talking about that.

I pulled the door open, and indeed, it was Naruto. He was just as blonde as I remembered, and his presence was as obnoxiously loud as ever. I let myself smile just a tiny bit – "You've changed," I said quietly. "You let your hair grow out, huh, Naruto – you look even more like the Yondaime now."

He grinned. I could tell that he was glad to see me, maybe almost as glad as I was to see him. Now, that's not something that my Uchiha pride would let me reveal just all the time – so don't go telling anyone. Particularly not Naruto, because he _doesn't_ need to know. But anyway… he grinned that really winning grin that he always does, and it was way more real than it sometimes was when he wore that same expression. "You haven't changed a damn bit," he said happily. "Your hair's a tiny bit longer, I guess, and maybe you look a _leeetle_ bit older, but you're still the same old Sasuke." On the 'leeetle' part, he made a motion with his fingers to show me just how small the change was, and somehow I nearly laughed at that. Instead, I managed to contain it to a snort, and led him inside.

Slowly, he turned in an almost mocking half-circle, surveying my filthy apartment. "Wooow," he said, "Your place is messy. It's almost as bad as mine. I figured that all Uchiha's would be borderline OCD. But you're kind of a slob, huh?" He swung the single dining-room chair around, generally facing the couch, and sat down in it. "So I guess I might as well tell you about this thing before you get all frustrated and stuff."

I had the distinct urge to say, 'I'm already frustrated and stuff,' just to be ornery, but I didn't. Because I'm nice. So instead I sat down on the arm of the couch, and said, "Yeah. You might as well." I had just noticed – Naruto was taller than me. Oh, the in_dig_nity. I don't really care, but it looked a little funny. He must have grown slow at first, because he was definitely shorter than me when we were in the academy… which was the last time I really noticed that stuff.

"Alright-y." He flipped open his pocket, and pulled out a rather crinkled-looking piece of paper. "I got this letter about a week ago. The reason I didn't contact you earlier was because one, it took a long time to check this guy's background, and two, I couldn't think up a decent code for 'five days before your birthday.' So I just decided, screw that, I'll talk to him on his birthday. And by the way, happy birthday." He smiled, and unfolded the letter, straightening it a little. "So… the guy who wrote to me is called Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of 'Hogwarts,' which has to do with witchcraft and wizardry. You know, magic. So I checked him out, because there's no _way_ I could take this on face value, and it's all true. Magic and stuff… well, I'd have to meet someone who uses magic to tell, but I think it's based out of chakra, but on a physically different level." He pushed the letter towards me, and I leaned out to grab it. Quickly, I scanned it, and then read it over again, this time thoroughly.

_To whom it may concern,_

_My name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. I am headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in England. I have heard, through my considerably impressive information network, that you and your associates take on jobs that couldn't be accomplished using normal methods, providing the one who supplies the job is prepared to give out a large sum of money at the drop of a wand. I believe that the task I need done fits nicely into those parameters, and I am prepared to offer you an amount which I don't feel comfortable stating in this letter, and extraneous expenses will be completely encompassed, providing that they pertain to the task at hand. The job I need done is this: my school, Hogwarts, is being targeted by a singularly dangerous individual and the accompanying mess of evil that follows him. As I have many students attending classes here for the better part of the year, and he may target me and one other individual of the student body for reasons that I will disclose when/if we meet, I worry that the rest of the students will come to harm. So my request is this: to protect the students totally and completely from harm within the school, until the threat is terminated or I no longer require your protection._

_If you accept, I must make a request, firstly that your protection of the student body be undercover. The second individual whom this threat may target does not take kindly to being protected, and it would cause problems if he, say, left the premises during the school year. Secondly, if it is not magic that you and your associates use, I wish that the use of those unknown skills be known in the full width and breadth to my staff members, such that if a situation was to arise, they would be able to utilize your abilities within their planning. Thirdly, I wish that the smallest number of guards required to complete this task be assigned, partly for secrecy and partly because while I may have money to spare on things like this, I do __not__ have a never-ending supply of money._

_I do believe I've run out of things I can say in this letter, so if you accept, please meet me in London at the attached address on the first of August._

_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

I stared in disbelief at the rather lengthy letter. The first thing that I had noticed about it, at the end, was troubling me slightly; "It doesn't say anything about eliminating this threat," I pointed out to Naruto. The blonde nodded.

"I think that either he's under the assumption that he won't be able to pay for that much, or he already has a standing plan for that which he doesn't intend to work us into too extensively. Maybe both." He nodded towards the letter. "But what do you think? You wanna? Be a nice, long vacation for us. I haven't seen you in a while, so I want to at least get really sick of you by the time we go our separate ways that I won't be so upset if we don't meet for a whole 'nother year." He grinned again, and I felt that I'm-not-really-smiling smile slip onto my face.

I squashed it quickly. I'm still an Uchiha, even if that doesn't really mean anything anymore. I instead said, "When do we leave, and should I put on my ANBU uniform?"

Naruto shook his head. "No," he replied, "We're going on a plane. And I already booked tickets; we're leaving in about three hours, providing we get through security and stuff on time, and don't fiddle-futz around in the airport and miss our flight. So let's go!" He stood up, and made a 'let's go' motion towards the door, trying to illustrate his point like he always does. It's already a point well made, but he doesn't care; he's Naruto.

So, I combed my hair really quick (I had only gotten half a chance earlier, before I forgot), grabbed my jacket and my duffel bag, and we left. I locked the door behind us, and then slid the key under Ms. Neighbor Lady's door, since she had agreed to watch the place for me, and then we had _really_ left. Naruto, it appeared, had gotten someone to take his luggage to the airport already, so he didn't have to carry his stuff around or go back to it. So we just picked up a cab, heading straight for the airport.

-

One long, exhausting plane ride later, we were sitting in a New York airport and waiting two hours for our next flight. I've never flown much, but I had decided that I preferred nonstop flights. I'm not sure you can fly nonstop from LA to London, but I _really_ wished we could have. Naruto was off giving some bagel vendor a hard time, I was sure, so I buried my nose in a novel I bought last weekend and never got the chance to read.

"He-ee-eey, Sasuke-kun!" I peeked over the top of the book – that was Sakura's voice? What was she doing there? My eyes flickered back and forth, searching for her pink head, and I couldn't find her until she said from my direct left, "I'm right here. What are you doing in New York?"

I blinked. Of course I hadn't seen her – she had dyed her hair black (it was a weak, reddish sort of black, looked like it needed to be redone), and she was wearing a flight attendant's uniform. "Flying to England," I responded, still a little confused. "Naruto picked up a mission there. You're a flight attendant?"

She smiled happily. "Yeah! My ex-boyfriend had connections; he got me the job before we broke up and couldn't make me lose it afterwards, because my employers say I'm too 'valuable.' Apparently, having really fast reflexes is good for a flight attendant." That made me think really hard for a moment. I didn't know what Naruto had been doing these five long years, but apparently at least Sakura had been able to make a decent living. Unlike me, who just skimmed by and wished for my days as a shinobi again. That thought was more than a little depressing, so I disregarded it.

Instead, I just nodded, and luckily I was saved from the potential awkwardness of that situation by Sakura being called away by one of her co-workers. She apologized, and off she went. I stared after her for a moment, before I heard Naruto's voice; "So Sakura's working here?"

"Yeah," I mumbled into my book. "As a flight attendant. Hey, what are the rest of the guys doing? You know, the… others. From Konoha and Suna."

"Well… Kiba's working as a professional dog trainer in Missouri, Hinata learned a bunch of foreign languages and is working somewhere in eastern Europe as a translator, I think Shino's in college to become an entomologist, Shikamaru and Chouji started a chain of barbecue restaurants starting in Texas – I think their parents are helping them, too. But I talked to Shikamaru the other day, and he said he wants to go to college so he can get into law. Ino and family are working in a flower shop somewhere in France, I talked to them the other day. It's really funny hearing Ino talk in French. Last I heard, most of our jounin teachers had collaborated to write a supposedly fiction book about shinobi… I don't know what the sand siblings are up to, but I saw Gaara in a Florida newspaper the other day! He won a sandcastle tournament, because he literally made a castle out of sand. Apparently, it's still standing a month later, and people have actually started using it as a casual beach home. And I heard through the grapevine that Tenten and Lee are playing at being yakuza, in Japan… And Neji, he's got a part-time job as a building inspector and the rest of the time, he helps me on what I do."

I paused. "And what _do_ you do?" I asked casually, trying not to make it sound like I was prodding, which was what I was one-hundred percent doing. "I mean, you know that I've been pretty much a bum about this new place…"

He frowned. Apparently, whatever he was doing, he really wasn't comfortable telling me – but before he could say anything, a woman's voice came over the loud speaker saying that our flight was boarding. Immediately, we got into the little line to board, and – I realized that Naruto hadn't answered my question.

-

Another annoyingly-long flight later, through which I mostly slept, and when I looked out through the little window, I immediately noticed something: the _time difference_. I hadn't even thought about it until I heard the captain say, _"The local time is seven-nineteen am."_ What, so I had spent an entire day on the plane? Well, it seemed a little like it… but I didn't feel _that_ tired. Time zones are so hard to comprehend.

Getting our stuff from the baggage claim was very irritating, and took much longer than I would have liked. All the same, we were here, and that was half the battle fought already. I decided that I was going to take a ship on the way back.

So we wandered through the airport for a little while, before we managed to call a cab, and took that to the hotel that that Dumbledore guy had said he would meet us at. So we'd have a couple days to check the area out… wait, how many days exactly? It was the twenty-fourth here, right? Damn, I missed my entire birthday. I said as much to Naruto, who just grinned and promised to buy me something as soon as he could find a phonebook.

I wasn't hung up about getting gifts, but Naruto _does_ know good things to give, so I wasn't going to argue. Like last year, he had mailed me a wrench, and I thought, _what kind of use is this gonna be?_ And what do you know, the next day the water pressure gets screwed up and half the people on my floor have water spraying around in their kitchens and bathrooms. It was great. I was actually social for once; but there was no need to say that. I just unpacked some of my stuff and sharpened that fuuma shuriken that I had had taped to my broom handle the day before Naruto came (however many days ago that was supposed to be). The idea behind that had actually had something to do with sharpening, anyway.

-

It didn't take very long for the first of August to come around. Naruto and I just hung around the hotel, got a feel for the culture (though I wasn't sure that any of this would be useful, since we'd be at a school belonging to an entirely different community for the entire duration of the mission), and generally goofed off. We even spent a while sparring; only taijutsu, because most of the ninjutsu that we knew was used for destruction, destruction, and more large-scale destruction. I don't think that our neighbors found it amusing when we frequently threw each other into walls, but then, I didn't find it amusing when they turned the TV on really loud, either.

So yeah; on August first, we had both just eaten lunch when somebody knocked at the door. I opened it, and got my first look at our employer. He was an elderly man, with long white hair and a matching beard, and he was wearing purple robes printed with silver stars. His eyes were really blue, and seemed to have a mischievous look to them that I didn't appreciate one _bit_. "You're Albus Dumbledore, right?" I asked, standing aside to let him in.

He nodded, and stepped inside. "I am indeed," he said politely. "May I ask your names?" He glanced between Naruto and I as I sat back down on the edge of my bed.

"Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha," Naruto said politely. "You asked for the least number of people possible to complete this mission – and here we are." He didn't say it, but I knew that in fact, we had probably prepared above what would have most likely been necessary. Two shinobi by themselves were strong, sure, but Naruto and I acting as a team was even above that. "We need to discuss the matter of payment before we get any further in this discussion."

Albus nodded, and then said, "The most I can offer you is thirty thousand galleons, which is equivalent to a little less than one-hundred and fifty thousand US dollars." He had a frown on his face, like he was worried that it wouldn't be enough; I wondered what kind of rumors Naruto had been spreading about our services. That was more than enough!

But, as ever, I was diplomatic and greedy. I put on an almost-frown, and glanced at Naruto. "I was anticipating a little more than that… What do you think, Naruto?" He was trying to frown too, and I guess that to anyone else the front would be perfect, but me, I could see the laughter just barely hidden behind his lips. He nodded in agreement, and turned away. So I get to make the decision, huh? "Well, I suppose we can accept that. Work's been slow lately, so we need whatever we can get." Now that was a blatant lie. I had no idea how well 'work' had been going. But it was the kind of lie you needed to tell to get as much as possible out of a man like this.

It seemed to work perfectly. He looked a little concerned, but didn't offer to raise the price – I guess a hundred and fifty was really the highest he could go. Naruto had dug around and come up with a sheet of paper – the contract. Naruto's signature was already on it, and there was space for mine and Albus's. I snatched the pen and laboriously signed my name in the English characters that I had changed my signature to. It would have been so much easier to just scribble the familiar Japanese characters… Albus signed right after me, in the sort of flourish that you'd expect from someone who had to write their own name a lot at some point in his or her life.

Sign your life away. We were, from that moment out, under this man's thumb until he told us otherwise. Ah, now _this_ was what I missed about shinobi life – getting paid to do all things unacceptable in today's society. It's great. Now, however, the man stood up, and said, "Well then. To talk about the rest of this job, I'd like to head to a place that I find much more… trustworthy. Are you ready to go?"

I looked over at Naruto, who had given up his overly-fake frown and was grinning again. "We'll get into uniform," he said, and Albus nodded. He left to wait outside, and as soon as the door was closed, Naruto and I congratulated each other silently, before hurrying about putting on our ANBU uniforms.

I love my uniform. There's something about seeing someone in a matching outfit with someone else that makes people jittery. The fact that our faces are covered doesn't much help, either. Mine and Naruto's masks are relatively plain, even though most ANBU masks are sculpted into unique animal-themed faces. Because we had been made ANBU on the leading edge of a war, we didn't have time to learn the crafting techniques to personalize the masks in the shape, so we had gone with minimal changes. Naruto had painted three red stripes on either cheek, and called himself 'Kitsune.' I had a green diamond in the middle of my mask, and called myself 'Karasu.' People tell us that the connection is vague, but to us, it makes perfect sense. And it's unique – in comparison to the usual, carved and reverse-relief details, our masks stood out. We weren't the usual ANBU, that's what it told fellow shinobi.

We decided that we would bring our katana. We were scouting new territory, so why not go fully-armed? Well, not _fully_ armed. I thoughtfully left all of my kunai behind, so I was only packing my katana, the senbon under my ANBU vest, and the wire that was wound along with my belt around my waist. My katana I put over my shoulder, the hilt facing down to my left hip. I put my hand on the bound handle, and kicked the blade sideways in the sheath a little, feeling it slide along with gravity. I pulled it out, checking it with one glance, and then sheathed it again. I nodded to Naruto, and noticed that he had changed how he carried his katana – it was perpendicular to his torso, at hip-level. I smirked behind my mask: it was so him.

We stepped out of the room, Naruto fumbling with the card key through his gloves, and I could feel our employer's eyes on us every step of the way as he led us through London. I had subtly cast a genjutsu around us, so we wouldn't attract quite so many suspicious stares as we walked through the crowds. As we walked through the streets of London, it felt to me that we were getting into a stranger and stranger neighborhood. I couldn't even think of anything that was actually queer about the place – it was just my shinobi instincts, I supposed.

At long last, Albus stopped in front of a strange building that seemed to be crammed in between two other stores. The sign above the door said 'The Leaky Cauldron.' The old man pointed to the place, and said, "Can you see that?"

I nodded. "Is that where you're leading us?" I asked. From the way he phrased his question, I supposed there must have been some sort of genjutsu on it that most people couldn't see through. I glanced at Naruto – he had been looking at me, too. We exchanged a tiny nod, and looked back to follow Albus into the little shop.

It was a dingy pub, it seemed. I didn't spend much time in places like this, but this one had… a sort of charm to it. It was almost the sort of place where you would expect to find a shinobi-for-hire. I took a quick look around – nobody looked suspicious, I couldn't pick up any outstanding chakra signatures… though now I thought about it, all of the people here seemed to have slightly disbalanced chakra signatures. Was that part of what made them unique? Oh, how I wished I had a Hyuuga here. I beckoned to Naruto, and he leaned in towards me enough so I could slide my mask sideways and whisper to him, "You said you work with Neji sometimes. I think we need him to come and check this out." I slid the porcelain back into place, and watched for Naruto's nod of agreement.

We followed Albus through the pub – he was greeted by the guy behind the bar, whom he addressed as Tom – and out the back door, into a little back alley. I was exceedingly confused – trash and brick walls, that's all I could see. _This_ is what he meant by a secure place to talk?

Obviously not, I realized a second later as he pulled out a long, thin piece of wood. He waved it around contemplatively, and then reached out and tapped several of the bricks on the wall in front of him. They immediately began rearranging themselves, and beneath my mask, my eyes widened – I looked over at Naruto, and his body language said that he was surprised, too. Well, then. The bricks folded themselves away to make an opening, and I could see a bustling street.

Albus turned aside so we could see the place perfectly well, and said, "Welcome to Diagon Alley."

* * *

Fuuma shuriken: basically a big, four-bladed shuriken that folds up conveniently. Naruto and Sasuke used it on the mission in the wave country.

Makibishi: trap spikes.

Hitae-ate: 'forehead protector' seemed like a stupid thing to say, so I kept the original Japanese.

Senbon: needles.

Yakuza: like a Japanese gang.

AN: Do you like the first chapter? You can tell me yes or no by clicking the grayish-purple button in the bottom left-hand corner!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.

AN: Hmm... I haven't actually gotten any reviews on the first chapter yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and post this because it's written.

* * *

As our employer led Naruto and I through this place he called Diagon Alley (which, if I thought about it hard enough, sounded a damn sight like 'diagonally'), I could just stare around in amazement. I was aware of how much easier all this observing would be without the restricting ANBU mask, but if I took it off, well then, there went part of my cover, as well as a great deal of my pride. Uchiha's weren't meant to gape.

But this place was amazing! To think that I had never seen anyone do magic, when it was this blatantly _obvious_. Magic wasn't like ninjutsu, which still obeyed laws like gravity; it was either physically possible or not. There was no _way_ these people could efficiently keep themselves to themselves. Heck, was that a flying _broom_ I saw over there? Just not possible! As we continued down the street, I realized that this was why that alley wouldn't have been accessible unless you knew magic – because there was no other way to keep civilians out. They'd all be too fascinated.

The first place we came to that Albus took any real interest in was a tall, white marble building. As I stared up it, it seemed to me that it was built with a decidedly _crooked_ design. Probably intentional, I figured. So in we went, and my initial impression was that it was a bank run by midgets. Well… that seemed to be mostly correct, I discovered, as Albus spoke to one of the short things, and it led us off to something that looked like it belonged in an underground mine. We all piled into a cart, and Naruto and I perched on the edges with chakra because there certainly wasn't enough room for three full-grown men and one dwarf thing in it.

One very thrilling, high-speed ride through an underground maze later (I wished to do something like that again very soon), we got off at a narrow platform. I saw a tall door ornamented with a fancy crest a few yards away, and nudged Naruto. He glanced at it, and nodded, turning to look at Albus. Apparently, that was where we were headed, as he and the short thing stepped up to it, and the former handed the latter a fancy silver key about as long as my hand. A short routine later, the door swung weakly open, and from within, I could see the gleam of something that was definitely gold.

"Thirty thousand," I heard our contractor mutter to the midget, holding up three fingers, and he (it?) nodded, going about collecting thirty thousand golden coins. I figured that we'd have a while to talk. And indeed we did; Albus turned to us right then. "So I'm sure you have a few questions by now," he said cordially. "Feel free to ask anything, and I'll answer to the best of my ability."

I opened my mouth, but Naruto beat me to the punch. "What is magic?" he asked, and I rolled my eyes; trust it to _him_ to ask a pointless question that was meant as physiological but would come across as psychological… and on top of that, it was a question that we intended to find the answer to by ourselves. But he continued; "And what _exactly_ is the scope of our mission? Your letter was only so clear. We need to know precisely what's expected of us." This time I nodded in agreement, more a show of unity than anything.

Albus sighed, and I noticed uneasily that he was fingering his wand. I understood, at least, that this was as dangerous as any weapon or handsign in the shinobi world. New rule number one; keep your eyes on where the enemy's wand is. Good rule of thumb, I thought. "Magical theoreticians suggest that 'magic' is an external energy of the body. There is obviously a physical difference between witches and wizards versus Muggles, non-magical people, and squibs, people who were born to witch and wizard parents but cannot themselves use magic. However, as to what that physical difference is, nobody is able to prove _what_ is different between magic-users and Muggles. That's all I can tell you on that subject, because I am by no means an expert in the field, though if you want more detail I'm sure you'd find something at the local bookstore." I shared a glance with Naruto; this we could potentially work with. "As to the extent of your mission… I don't want your primary charge, Harry Potter, to know that you are specifically protecting him, because I'm afraid he would act out if he knew it. But if you act as generic security for the entire school while pointedly not favoring him, I think that he won't suspect anything. I need you to prevent anything from entering the grounds uninvited, and even though it is my staff's job to prevent students from leaving the grounds, I would like you to keep a second watch on that, too. Not clear enough?"

"Where will be sleeping and eating?" I interjected before Naruto could – I could feel the half-glare he threw at me a second later. "Also, if we're going to do this right, we need access to every area without restrictions, permission to put up bugs and surveillance, and a complete and detailed map of the premises. Basically, we need one-hundred percent authority, to be able to make whatever we need to have happen, happen, when and how we say it. Anything less, and risks can and potentially _will_ slip through our defenses." I could see his hesitation; he was worried for the privacy of those under his protection. Well, I guess it was a valid worry. So I said, "We do things the way we do things, sir. We will not abuse the authority, but we will have it for when we _need_ it. If it makes you more comfortable, my companion and I will take full responsibility for anything that comes up as a result of what we do."

That seemed to soothe him a little. "In that case, I can grant it," he said. "I will have an empty room prepared for you two by the time you arrive at the school, which I think you should become acquainted with sometime in late August. The kitchens are fully accessible to you if you don't wish to eat in the Great Hall with the students and the staff. By the way – the students will take a train, the Hogwarts Express, to the school on the first of September. Things have been known to happen during the train ride, so I would request that you travel on the train as well, to keep it mellow. I would hate it if the only blind spot in our security was the Hogwarts Express."

At that moment, the short critter tapped Albus at a height of somewhere around his shin, and said, "I've sorted out thirty thou, Mr. Headmaster. What do you want me to do with it?"

"Ah, excellent," the white-haired old man said delightedly. "We'll be converting it all to U.S. dollars, and transferring it to these young men's bank accounts. I assume you're capable of doing as much?" Whatever that thing was, it apparently had excessive pride in itself, for it made an affronted expression, and grumbled 'of course I can,' on his way back to the cart. I noticed he wasn't carrying anything he hadn't had on the way down. Albus bid us follow the creature into the cart, and it was the same adrenaline-rush ride as it had been on the way back up, except that I mistakenly sat backwards for the first few seconds, so _that_ had been even more enjoyable. I love wizarding-world banks.

-

We went back to the pub, the Leaky Cauldron, after that. Albus got us a room so we could stay close to Diagon Alley, and we wouldn't have to worry about finding the place again. Somehow, when we went up to check the room out, our stuff was already there –another wonderfully random display of magic. I could just _feel_ my sanity crumbling away every second I stayed in this environment.

I, at least, was still pretty thrown by jet lag, so I slept most of the rest of the day. Naruto seemed to be more used to it by then, because he didn't go to sleep when I did and he wasn't there when I woke up. I wandered downstairs and got something to eat – I spotted a clock that said it was about eight in the evening – and then went out into Diagon Alley again. It really was overwhelming there, for a shinobi like myself who has sharper-than-average senses.

The place that I most wanted to visit was the bookstore that Albus had mentioned. Usually I wouldn't have accepted such an iffy mission, but a hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money – even if I was splitting it with Naruto. So, I figured, I might as well make the most of a weird situation. Albus had left a map of Diagon Alley with Tom the barkeeper for Naruto and I, so I took a glance at it – literally a glance, thank God for Sharingan – and then took off for the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts. It was impressive; the place had a sort of air about it that was comfortable, if busy. I figured that once I got inside, it would be pretty quiet.

I was right, for the most part. It may have been my mask that was keeping everyone at bay, though. I scanned through the books for a while, generally picking out those whose subjects covered recent history, Hogwarts in general, and magical theory. Since I wasn't sure how Albus paying all of our expenses would work yet, I decided to just read the books there – I could get away with it even if I wasn't supposed to. I was a shinobi after all, right?

While I wandered around looking for a place to hide out and read, I noticed a flash of blonde out of the corner of my eye. My head turned reflexively, and I saw Naruto carrying a rather precarious pile of books and glancing around in distress. Setting down what few books I had in the corner, I darted over and took off the top half of the stack. _"Pay attention,"_ I said quietly, letting myself slip back into speaking Japanese. It was a habit with Naruto, to keep our conversations private. _"What are you doing? You weren't in the room when I woke up."_

My blonde companion was smiling behind that porcelain mask, I could tell. It was something in the way his shoulders shrugged up just a little. _"Well, I wasn't a bit tired, so I've been looking around Diagon Alley for a while,"_ he said, also reverting to Japanese. _"It's a really interesting place. Anyway, I got a chance to talk to Albus again for a short time, and he told me that to have anything paid for by him when he's not there, we should just tell the shopkeepers that Albus is paying. He put a sort of… barcode spell on our masks, so the shopkeepers can tell that it's us."_ I nodded; that made sense. Well, at least that old man had thought it out a little. I wondered briefly if the barcode spell would be duplicated with kage bunshin.

I took a glance at the books in Naruto's arms, and noticed that most of them were exactly the same as the ones I had collected, but he also had several more besides that. I sighed, mentally at least. _"So what time does this place close?" _I asked. _"I'm really hungry right now. It feels to me like my day is just beginning."_ I paused, realizing what I had said. This could actually work to our advantage – this being, my inability to catch up to jet lag. I stored the topic away in the back of my consciousness, to bring up at a different time.

Naruto and I purchased the books in short order, and then went back to the Leaky Cauldron. Naruto read for a little while, and I went to get something to eat. By the time I came back, he was in bed asleep. I sighed – I could have predicted this. We'd end up being awake and asleep in opposite shifts at Hogwarts, and while that actually worked pretty good in most situations like these, I couldn't help but have a bad feeling about it. Particularly because I'd have the dark end of it, even though his night eyes are better than mine. So I spent most of the day (evening… Evening, I have to remember that) reading the books and memorizing them with my Sharingan. By the time I realized that I was dead exhausted from using such a sensitive technique for so long, Naruto was sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes sleepily. I smiled slightly – he still acted like an idiot in the mornings. Some things didn't change with time, I guessed.

He sat up and looked around as if he were still half in his dream world, trying to straighten out his conscious and subconscious thoughts. I heard him mutter something to himself, and then he made a face and rolled out of the awkward little bed. "G'morning Sasuke," he mumbled as he passed by the little desk, laying his hand on the back of the chair and peering over my shoulder. "Oh… that stuff on energy sources, right? Yeah, from the description, it sounds a lot like chakra."

I nodded, and turned another page, completely disinterested in the material I was steadily absorbing. "It really does. This practically seems like a beginner Academy-level scroll, but from an idiot's perspective. This crud is almost theological, and yet, disturbingly accurate, if you read it the right way. I'm sure it looks like nonsense to anyone else." I pointed to a particular line on the page. "See, listen to this: _'I believe that our energy coils inside us like a snake, which raises its fanged head on occasion to spit our poison in the eyes of our foes.'_ If you think about it, he's talking about their chakra coils deforming to let them use the energy raw in whatever ridiculous structures they make with wands. He just _says_ these things in such moronic ways! If he used common sense instead of overly-embellished metaphors, he wouldn't be signed off as a ranting loony. He must have self-published."

Looking out of the corner of my eye, I could see his eyes tracing the line that I had read. He was nodding slightly, mouthing the words as he went, and I was slightly unnerved by the attention I was paying to his warm breath on my shoulder. Just as I was about to do something (or say something, or whatever), he straightened up and yawned mightily. "It's too early for crackpot wizards. I'm going downstairs to eat." I just nodded, and when he left, I shook myself, turned my Sharingan back on, and hoped for another two hours before I would be bordering on chakra depletion.

-

It was only forty-five minutes before I decided that there was no way I would be able to stand up tomorrow if I didn't quit right at that moment. So I let the chakra-induced redness fade from my eyes, the spinning black tomoe fading from definition, though I still thought I could see slightly blank spots spinning in my vision. That disturbed me a little – my brother had been going blind, hadn't he? But that had been from the Mangekyou, which I didn't have. So I just blinked a couple times, and then went downstairs to eat something parallel to dinner.

I wandered down the stairs, using my chakra to play the lock mechanism to a closed position and bend the parts that recognized a key into a useless shape, and made my way into the bar to find Naruto wolfing down squashed-looking scrambled eggs, and… had he put _ketchup_ on it? I pulled a tall stool up next to him, and asked jokingly, "You really do that? That's so weird, Naruto."

He turned to me and said with his mouth full, "Sh' whaw? Taeh good." He swallowed with difficulty, and returned to shoveling eggs into his mouth. "Ah'n gawa wamew… around the alley today. You… wan' me 'a buy son'thin fer you?" I paused, trying to figure out what he had said.

At long last, I sorted out the syllables; "Oh. No, nothing I can think of… Actually, get some books on magical creatures and offensive and defensive styles of magic." Tom happened to wander by behind the bar, and I waved him down, ordering a cup of coffee and an omelet – I hoped he knew how to make a decent one. "We need to get a hand-hold on what we'll potentially be up against." I received a nod in response, and Naruto drained the glass of milk that I had just noticed next to him. He threw an 'ittekimasu' over his shoulder, but he was gone before I could respond, leaving me hanging and everybody in earshot a little confused.

The omelet that Tom the barkeeper brought me was iffy, but tasted pretty good regardless, and the coffee was practically lukewarm to somebody like me, and it was weak as hell. But I could only fix part of that, so I took it up to mine and Naruto's room and heated it with a katon jutsu that I had invented for heating liquid when there was no chance to light a fire. As I sipped the scalding liquid, I remembered when I first left the shinobi hidden continent, and how the days had seemed so much longer than before. Now, I drank coffee almost chronically just to keep myself passing through the day. I wished vaguely that I could break out of such an addiction-like habit, but I really didn't do anything to change it, anyway.

I tried to concentrate on the books for a little while when I got up to my room, but I felt drug down by my drained chakra, and coffee at this level had no chance of keeping me awake for long, so I ended up just going to sleep. I set both my biological clock and the flat, rectangular alarm device that I kept in the palm of my hand while I slept, such that I would wake up at three in the afternoon so I could meditate for a while, and then fall asleep again.

It seemed like bare seconds between the time I slipped comfortably into slumber to the time that I was yanked out of that cushioned realm only a moment before a grating blare nearly deafened my right ear. _Damn it,_ I thought, _must be three o'clock._ I rolled out of the bed, which was markedly less comfortable when I was awake, and landed in a burrito-shaped pile on the floor. Wow, I hate bed sheets. As I thrashed around and tried to extricate myself without shredding the wrinkled white cloth – besides, my kunai were all out of reach at that moment, anyway. Damn.

But eventually I managed to extricate myself, and then I stood up, using my fingers to comb my hair into something a little neater. I noticed the new stack of books on the table, and grabbed the first one on the stack. I opened it to somewhere in the middle (right around a section on something called a crup), and sat down on my bed with my legs crossed. I had long since learned to multitask, and now, ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, I would be showing you my amazing ability to read and meditate at the same time. Be awed!

I ended up falling asleep sitting up. It was dreadfully embarrassing to wake up with my neck bent in an uncomfortable position, the book folded over my hand, and my cheek was crusty and damp to boot. I didn't _drool_ or anything, I just forgot to swallow during my sleep. What are you trying to insinuate, Uchiha's don't drool! I opened my hand, not the one that was wedged into the book as a sort of bookmark, and saw that the flat digital clock read 9:30 pm. I wondered why I had woken up – _was_ there a real reason? – and then realized that I could hear voices from just outside the door.

"He's asleep, Albus. Sasuke used up a lot of chakra last night reading, since he's still got bad jet lag and wakes up about the time everything closes. So can you just _tell_ me?" Definitely Naruto's voice, that one.

"This is important – I need to talk to both of you. Something has happened to the secondary charge, something which has potentially very bad consequences." And yeah, that was Albus. All right, I was going to the door.

As soon as I pulled it open, Naruto noticed me and said, "Oh, you _are_ awake. All right, Albus, I guess you can come in and talk now." I smirked just a little bit – Naruto wasn't at all amused about whatever Albus was pestering him with. His tone had turned disdainful, which as I had discovered meant he was distinctly peeved. That tone of voice was usually followed immediately by an epic case of ass-kicking. I was actually looking forward to this.

Since there were only two chairs, Naruto and Sasuke sat down in them and left Albus to summon his own, which he did with surprisingly good grace. I expected he was sore about it, anyway. At long last, he said, "This evening, less than ten minutes ago, Harry Potter was attacked by Dementors." Ah, I definitely recognized that word. Uhh… I glanced down at the book in (around) my hand. Opening it, I saw that I had fallen asleep on the page about Dementors. Albus nodded in approval, and continued as I scanned the article, Sharingan turned on now that I had a little spare chakra. "Now, even if he was attacked by Dementors, it would still be a problem, but in this situation, it's distinctly worse. Harry defended himself against the Dementors using magic, which can be detected outside of Hogwarts by the Ministry of Magic, and he did it in the presence of his Muggle cousin, Dudley Dursley. _Now_ I'm sure that the Ministry will be trying to get him expelled for using underage magic outside of school – the biggest problem is that I don't know for sure whether they can or not."

Now wasn't that inconvenient. I could already see where this was going, though… "So what's the plan?" Naruto asked. "I guess you need to get him out of that situation so he can continue going to Hogwarts. How do you intend to do that?" It did seem like a predicament; you couldn't just run away from something as big as the local government trying to get you thrown out of your school.

Albus sighed heavily. "I'm still working on that," he said wearily. "I only know one thing so far: we need to get him out of his aunt and uncle's house. A group of people with whom I associate, an 'anti-dark wizard' group if you will, will be able to do that much. What I want you two to do is get a good look at Harry's memories of the incident, so that if there is a hearing at the Ministry, you will be able to convincingly lie about being present, but hidden." I was about to point out that these were wizards, and there was no way they wouldn't be able to tell that we were lying, but he overrode me before I could get the words out. "I know that you two have strong mental barriers, but not a 'blocking' kind; more of a 'fooling' kind. It's very useful, but takes imagination and a much wider attention span."

Naruto nodded, expression contemplative, and I reached for my mask; "The first order of business that I'm curious about is this group you mentioned," I said firmly. "Until we at least know exactly what the Ministry's plan of action is, we can't develop our own very extensively. Get him out of there, yes, and we can plan that far, but Naruto and I can't do it by ourselves. Kidnapping isn't something either of us has been trained in." Well, I hadn't, and judging by the genuine expression on my partner's face, he either hadn't or had learned how to lie much more convincingly since the last time I saw him. I was slightly intrigued by how likely the latter option was.

Apparently, our contractor agreed. He stood up, and said, "Yes, you do need to meet them. As soon as possible, I should think. Is it all right if we leave right about… now?" Well, that was abrupt, but not entirely unexpected. I was totally ready to go, since I had just woken up, and Naruto looked like he had a couple hours left in him. But, I reasoned, that's a shinobi you're looking at, Sasuke; he can keep his wits about him even when he's dog tired, because that's what shinobi life requires of him. ANBU life even more so. I nodded, and Naruto did too, and then Albus beckoned for us to stand up and come over.

We grabbed our masks and put them on, and then did as he motioned. I had a sense of foreboding just then, but I did my best to ignore it as Albus put his hands on our shoulders. Quite abruptly, it felt like my body was being ripped apart inch by inch… one time when I had gotten my hair cut it had felt something like this, except that this hurt more, and it was all over my body. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the infinitely uncomfortable sensation – I couldn't really move, anyway, so if this wasn't supposed to happen, I just had to go along with it – and eventually, the process seemed to reverse and put me back together. The discomfort was not measurably lessened in the reverse. Mostly, that's a fancy way of saying that it hurt like hell coming and going, and I was _more_ than ready for it to stop.

As soon as it had, as soon as I could move again, I promptly fell over. Next to me, I could hear Naruto cursing, though it was muffled by his mask. I shook my head, and then glared up at Albus, who didn't look at all fazed, either by the fact that we were on the ground or by the rather disruptive method of travel. Oh yes, we had traveled – my back was now against knobby blacktop, not splintery wood floor, and it was dark, as you would expect it to be outside at nearly ten o'clock at night. As I got up slowly, I glanced around. I really couldn't see any signs or anything, but I did notice the dull light from the streetlamps illuminating the house number: numbers nine, ten, eleven, _thirteen?_ Alright…

I continued to take in my surroundings, and I noticed Naruto doing the same, until I saw out of the corner of my eye that Albus was writing something. I tried to peek over his shoulder, but he pulled it out of my view, so I just watched how his hand was moving. _Found… at… number… twelve,… Grimmauld… Place,… London._ Oh, that totally made sense, particularly because if this was Grimmauld Place, then there _was_ no number twelve here. However, at that moment, he held the paper out to me, and said, "Read this and memorize it. I'll destroy it as soon as you're done."

_The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve Grimmauld Place, London._ Alright, done – I even bothered to use my Sharingan to memorize it, before I handed the paper to Naruto. He read it and handed it back to me, and I watched as his shoulders slouched just a little in confusion and annoyance. I smirked, and then turned my mask sideways on my head to blow a many-times-miniature katon jutsu at the sheet of paper. It quickly curled into ash, and Albus looked rather surprised, though he didn't comment. "Care to tell us what that was supposed to mean?" I asked coolly, sliding the smooth mask back over my face. "If I assume that this is Grimmauld Place, then you're definitely missing number twelve. And what is the Order of the Phoenix? That anti-dark magic group you mentioned?"

Albus nodded. "Just concentrate on what was written. It's an enchantment to keep a place hidden from just anyone wandering up to the door. I'm the secret-keeper for the Order of the Phoenix, which is indeed the group I mentioned. Now let's go, I'm sure you don't want to stand around in the cold for too much longer." I would have mentioned that this wasn't actually that cold, but decided against it, and just concentrated. I could hear Naruto mutter, _"Oh, shut up, you,"_ and I knew exactly who he was talking to, but also knew better than to mention it in present company.

No sooner had I run through the strange statement in my mind, than the houses numbered eleven and thirteen began to move aside. It was as if somebody had shrunken the twelfth one down to a microscopic size, and it was now growing again, activated seemingly by our thinking about it. I just stared, until it finally stopped growing and Albus turned towards it, meaning to go inside. Naruto and I didn't have much of a choice but to follow him.

Within the house, it was dark and foreboding, the kind of place that made you want to shut your mouth and keep it shut, out of fear of waking something evil. The last time I felt this so intensely was in Orochimaru's underground caves, during the few days that I had been there. I glanced at Naruto, and saw him looking at me – I realized that he was probably comparing this in some way to Kyuubi, as I did to Orochimaru.

A door opened at the other end of the long hall, and a round woman with a mess of straggly red hair pinned on top of her head bustled out, a sopping rag wringing itself out in midair in front of her: it was obviously held there by magic. She glanced back and forth, and then spotted us standing at the end of the hall. "Oh, Dumbledore!" she said, voice hushed, as she tiptoed hurriedly over. "I'm glad you're here; Sirius is practically throwing a fit. We were discussing the party going to retrieve Harry, and Moody told him that he can't go. You can imagine." She sighed almost inaudibly, and finally noticed Naruto and I – I was an inch or so taller than her, and it was strange for me to be looking down that short distance at someone definitely older than me – the graying ribbons in her vibrant hair betrayed more than she wished they did, I was sure. "Oh, are you two the ones that Dumbledore has hired to protect Hogwarts? Come on, come into the kitchen."

We followed her back through the door that she had first appeared from, and down a flight of stairs that were uncomfortably narrow, into a large room. This place seemed a little more comfortable that the darkness up above, and I could feel Naruto relax a little next to me. It was certainly less ornate, what with the many pots and pans hanging around the place, the big fireplace at the far end of the room (I was always a sucker for warm places), and the long wooden table, around which many people were seated, arguing in a friendly manner. The general topic seemed to be Harry Potter, I noticed, but that was to be expected. From what I had read in the more recent history books that Naruto had bought, he was somewhat of a residential hero.

The woman ran over to a pot bubbling on the stove, and swirled her wand around, leading the heavy metal spoon with it to stir the soup inside. Albus broke away from us and took a seat next to a man with messy black hair who looked distinctly upset. A moment later, he beckoned us over, and as soon as he deemed us close enough, he said, "So, Sirius, these are Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Do they look good enough to protect your godson?" Ah, so that was the 'Sirius' that the woman had mentioned.

I turned to Naruto, and whispered in Japanese, _"So our charge still has at least one relative still alive."_ Of course, I avoided using Potter's name, because even if I could disguise my words, names still sounded the same. _"What do you make of this place?"_

"_The vibe I get upstairs is a lot like my mindscape would be if fuzz-face took a very long vacation,"_ he grumbled. _"Y'know… old, long-gone ill intent. The bastard absolutely loves it up there. But this room is halfway decent, at least."_ I nodded in agreement, and my fingers just barely brushed his elbow – that was as close to a comforting gesture as he was going to get while I had my mask on.

At that time, Albus beckoned us closer, and bid us take off our masks to let the Order of the Phoenix see our faces. Reluctantly, I let it slip from my face and caught it easily in one hand, hooking it over the shuriken pouch at my hip. Naruto opted for slipping his to the side of his head. The group in front of us, at least those who had caught on to the fact that someone else was around and quit arguing, looked generally surprised – I could only guess that they thought we were too young to protect the school properly. I considered saying something, but Albus took the initiative first. "These two have agreed to display their full abilities to me, but we don't yet have a convenient facility for that. I intend to see to that as soon as these two head to Hogwarts, which will definitely be before the start of the school year. As to anything else, I encourage the lot of you to ask these boys questions to whatever extent you see necessary."

I sighed mentally. Well, this would mean answering a lot of tedious questions to be answered. I raised my hand slightly, and said, "Before that… may I ask for something to eat? It's just morning time for me, and I pretty much exhausted myself last… yesterday." I noticed Naruto nearly yawn, but it would have been awkward if I spoke for him, so I didn't. The members of the Order quickly found us seats, and the red-haired woman poured us both bowls of the steaming soup, which I promptly began to gulp down – she made a comment about the soup's temperature, but it tasted barely lukewarm to me – and stood by for questions.

They came hard and fast. It started with things like 'how old are you,' and continued to 'where do you live,' which Naruto declined to answer (to my personal annoyance; I still wanted to know), 'what magic school did you attend,' which escalated into some interesting questions like 'how can you get into Number Twelve if you aren't wizards,' and 'what kind of education _did_ you receive.' We avoided most of the more personal questions, and answered with vague statements like, 'we can manipulate the energy that wizards use, but our systems aren't built like yours,' and 'we learned to use our internal energy in less conventional methods than with wands.' They asked for a display, and since Naruto was half asleep in his chair – the warm soup and fireplace were having that effect on him, as it would most people – I did it; I stole Naruto's spoon with chakra strings, walked up a wall, and transformed myself into a violet-haired witch who thought it was absolutely hilarious. She reminded me of the tokubetsu jounin who had overseen our first trip through the Forest of Death, Mitarashi Anko, which wasn't really a nice thing to say about anyone.

I continued to answer questions, mostly in a roundabout way, until Naruto fell asleep and his ANBU mask slipped off and landed in the cool remains of his soup. I laughed a little, and then hauled him over to sleep in a corner – because there was no way I was carrying him up goodness knows how many flights of stairs. I even bothered to unseal a blow-up mattress (I felt obliged to use a fuuton jutsu to inflate it) and put him near the fire. I'm sure he'd appreciate it more than if I had just left him in a cold bed with a hard spring mattress. Since I was full and everybody else was going to bed, I decided to spend the rest of my 'day' reading the books that Naruto had bought before we left. I didn't use my Sharingan nonstop, only when I found an important piece of information or a particularly impossible paragraph. It was actually amusing, how much prejudice was put out against any magic-users with non-magic heritage; I could loosely relate it to the conflicting opinions of the shinobi born into clans and those with civilian birth… but in a much more blown-far-out-of-proportion sort of way.

It was actually very interesting to listen to people starting to wake up a little while after four. Sirius stumbled into the kitchen and put a pot of coffee, and I considered telling him that he was measuring out one-half of a cup of ground coffee instead of one-third, but it really was amusing, and I liked strong coffee anyway. A little while later, the red-haired woman who had greeted us at the door when we first arrived had come downstairs, thrown out the too-strong pot of coffee, and started making breakfast before she noticed that I was awake – when she did, she came over and introduced herself as Molly Weasley. I just said politely that it was nice to meet her; since she already knew my name, it would be ridiculous to re-introduce myself. As she went back about her cooking, I continued reading the book – it was about house-elves, and had an annoyingly condescending tone. I figured the writer was a pure-blood.

It was six o'clock and I had eaten before Naruto woke up. It was pretty funny when he fell off the mattress that I had blown up for him, and I nearly laughed, but luckily (or unluckily) I had a mouthful of coffee, and so I couldn't. Instead, I swallowed quickly and said, "You fell asleep last night and I didn't feel like trying to carry you upstairs or anything. I had that in one of my scrolls, but don't mess with it, I'm going to be using it in a while."

He nodded, and sat down at the table. Molly came over a second later with food for him. He thanked her, and fell silent for a minute, eating. It took a few minutes for Naruto to get enough in his stomach to slow his shoveling-in-food to a polite pace, and at that point he asked in Japanese, _"I feel obliged to ask, what was your impression of these people based on just last night?"_

"_They aren't that bad,"_ I mused. _"But then, if they're paying us, I could say that about anyone and mostly mean it. The house is a bit strange, but not strange enough to be uncomfortable. What about you? You mentioned… him…"_ I glanced down at Naruto's stomach just for a moment, to where I knew the tattoo-like seal to be, before looking back at the rough wooden table. _"Is he acting up?"_

Naruto shook his head vehemently, and mostly swallowed, before mumbling, _"It got a little weird last night, but he's asleep again now. Said something about Orochimaru, though… something like 'if he saw this place…' but I forget exactly what."_

I frowned, and Naruto continued with his meal, letting me think in peace. From what Naruto remembered of Kyuubi's words, it sounded like the bijuu had been insinuating that this place held something of value, be it presence or psychological value or an actual object, that would do more harm than good if Orochimaru found it. I put my thoughts to Naruto, who considered it for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. He got a distracted look in his eyes after that, and I knew that he was talking to Kyuubi, and probably getting nearly zilch in the way of decent responses. The fox was useful that way, y'know.

Nearly everyone had come downstairs and had either eaten and moved on about their business or was in the process of eating, when Albus showed up; I wasn't sure where he had left to the previous night, but I guessed he hadn't slept upstairs. He walked straight over to Naruto and I, waving off anyone who tried to talk to him about something presumably important, and stopped in front of us. "I suppose I owe you two a very long explanation," he said flatly. I wholeheartedly agreed.

* * *

Sharingan: Copy wheel eye. A doujutsu unique to the Uchiha clan, used to copy and memorize jutsu and information in general.

Kage bunshin: shadow clones. Solid clones that aren't just an illusion, but can actually take a good, solid hit before they disappear.

Mangekyou Sharingan: Kaleidoscope copy wheel eye. A heightened form of the Sharingan that is characterized by a special genjutsu.

Ittekimasu: means something like 'I'm off now' or 'I'll see you later' in Japanese. Said when someone is leaving, usually followed by 'itterashai,' or 'have a safe trip' from the party staying behind.

Tokubetsu jounin: a 'special' jounin, though I'm not sure if that means they were given the jounin rank under unusual circumstances, or if they're more highly skilled than your average jounin.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.

AN: I generally have nothing important to say here, so it's okay if you disregard it completely. But you know, I get so much more writing done when I'm grounded.

* * *

"Fourteen years ago, Lord Voldemort heard part of a prophecy saying that a boy with the power to kill him was born; the circumstances were very precise. Voldemort discovered that it was Harry Potter who fulfilled the terms in the prophecy, and went right away to kill him. His mother and father tried to save him, and ultimately, Harry survived the killing curse, Avada Kedavra; it was assumed that Voldemort was killed by the rebound of the curse, but he wasn't. Last June, he regained his body, and has since then been working to recover the formidable army that he once had. This group, the Order of the Phoenix, is fighting secretly against the threat, because the Ministry of Magic are still caught on denying that Voldemort is alive, never mind admitting that I'm right and maybe working up a resistance."

I sighed heavily, and ran a hand through my hair, commenting to Naruto in Japanese, _"This sounds so incredibly bogus. I swear, this must be the most crazy-ass job you could ever find, you moron."_ Prophecies, vigilante groups, and dark wizards coming back to life aside, I didn't really like kids, and I'd be hanging around them for the better part of nine months. But to Albus, I said, "The only thing I can do in this situation is accept that you're telling the truth, and ask what we do next. So… what's next?"

Albus smiled slightly, as if amused by my response – I couldn't figure out what was supposed to be funny, frankly. But he just said, "Next, we bring Harry here. The Ministry has set his hearing for the twelfth, so we have until then to get him back here and set up a story for you to tell the Wizengamot—" I stared at him blankly until he realized I hadn't a single idea what that was—"That is, the wizard's court. They do have skilled legilimens with them, to keep you from lying, so it needs to be complete. You won't be able to speak Japanese between yourselves in the courtroom, for they won't hesitate to use a translation spell to find out what you're saying." It seemed to me that he was repeating things that either he had told us before, or we had already guessed; I glanced at Naruto, whose expression said pretty much the same thing. "Anyway… We're still working on an exact time-date plan for picking Harry up from his relatives' house."

He finished speaking and set about the incredibly mundane task of rubbing his wand clean on his robes, just as I heard three sets of very noisy footsteps coming down the stairs into the kitchen. I looked over at the door, keen on seeing just who was walking so loudly like that, and saw three kids, two of whom had the same bright red hair as Molly Weasley, so I figured that they must be her children. The other girl looked out of place between them, though not awkwardly so; she must have been in some way used to being the third wheel. I found that genuinely funny; she reminded me of Sakura, pinned in-between two boys who sparred like real fights and made fun of each other in bath houses, and not at all helped by our no-good sensei.

I hadn't seen those kids the night before (I say kids, never mind that they didn't look more than two or three years younger than Naruto or I, because to me all civilians my age act like children), so I was preparing to answer yet another barrage of questions… these three, in particular the brown-haired girl and the boy, looked very nosy. More so than any of the adults, because people at this age just wanted to know things, they didn't have inhibitions about asking questions that would normally be too personal. And, indeed, they had seen us and were making a beeline, dodging all attempts at distraction and breakfast.

"Who are you guys?" the brunette girl demanded as soon as she sat down across from us, in the seat that Albus had just mysteriously vacated; I glanced around, but he was gone. Bastard must take some kind of delight in making me interact with people my own age. "I've never seen you two around here before; how long have you been with the Order?"

I sighed, and reached over and took a long drink of Naruto's milk; he made a protesting sound around his mouthful of second-serving, but didn't do anything, and I gave it back right away. I stayed silent for a few moments, contemplating how to answer, and at last said, "Albus hired us to keep watch at Hogwarts. We've been here since yesterday m—evening. How about you? You didn't hear it last night, you must not be incredibly big around here."

She blushed in embarrassment at my words, and I smirked a little. Naruto elbowed me approvingly; I guess he didn't think much about her, either. I could always smell somebody too smart for their own good, and I knew that we'd have trouble with this girl somewhere down the road if we didn't make nice now. However, she recovered from my jab pretty nicely, and continued on talking. "… I'm Hermione Granger, and these two are Ron and Ginny Weasley." She pointed to the two, who were indeed Molly's children. I just nodded in acknowledgement, and she asked, "What are your names, then? How old are you? Where do you come from?"

"Sasuke Uchiha, seventeen, hailing from LA, California," I intoned flatly, before looking over at Naruto, who had finished eating and was messing with his ANBU mask under the table. "What about you? You never actually said where you're living these days, Naruto. One can't help but be curious."

He was fidgeting, and there was a two-second pause that no one but me could have attached meaning to, before he said, "Uhh… Canada. Name's Naruto Uzumaki, sixteen years old." Ohh, boy. So he really doesn't want anyone to know where he lives? _Really_? It mattered that much to him?

_Well if it does, then I really want to find out,_ was my thought. I switched to Japanese, not wanting to insult him in front of those kids, and said, _"You're lying, and quite badly. Even for you, that was downright pathetic. Why does it matter so much to you that nobody knows where you are? You made enemies with somebody really bad and you're afraid of intel leaking to him? At least tell me – I'm your teammate, right?"_

Naruto looked very uncomfortable, and he promptly lifted his mask up and put it on. It was a frustrating gesture for me; it said that he was shy and trying to avoid answering to my face. But as a mark of our teamwork, I complied and put mine on, too, and he finally answered, humbled voice echoing from behind the mask; _"It's – well, I guess it's a little like that, but there's other stuff too… and I know how much you don't like missing-nins…"_ I just waited patiently; he couldn't see my face like this, so in some ways it was advantageous, because he could never put up with me just staring at him. _"… I couldn't quit being a shinobi after we left Konoha, and I joined this group that came together, like a hidden village, but connected over the internet and not in a literal village. Most of the ones who joined are missing-nins who've made the bingo book. I can't really talk about it because it'd be easy for the Akatsuki to hunt me down if they found out. But it really is centered in Canada."_

I nodded, and looked back at the three teenagers, who staring at us and looking very baffled. The redhead girl, Ginny I guess she was called, stammered something about my mask, and I moved it to the side of my head. These people must have something against masks; well, or they just weren't used to them… Hermione continued on with asking; "So how does it work that you're still underage, but you don't have to attend school?"

For a moment, I couldn't figure out what she was talking; and then I realized that she meant magical education, which lasted seven years starting when you were _eleven_. It seemed like a ridiculous idea no matter how I looked at it, but that wasn't the topic at the table. Naruto beat me to explaining; "We aren't wizards," he said plainly. "That is, we can use the energy that you wizards use for magic, but we just weren't born to channel it through special pieces of wood." Oh, _that_ didn't sound condescending and rude, did it? "Well, anyway, we've been counted as adults in our own… society, will you have it, since we were twelve. Schooling isn't an issue either, we also finished that at twelve and have either taught ourselves or gotten tutoring since then."

I could see that they were going to ask for a demonstration at that point, so I took the initiative and said bluntly, "If you want to see what we can do, convince Albus to let you come to Hogwarts when we go there to show off. No private shows, you know." Naruto had just taken a gulp of milk, and when I said that he choked and coughed in the most interesting of ways; makes a guy think. But the teenagers just looked so disappointed that I felt the kind of pity for them that you feel when you see baby animals whose mothers got killed on the highway. So, I reached over and combed my fingers through Naruto's hair, filching the wire that he had had tangled in it all night. I wound it around my fingers a little, and managed to tie it to the eyehole of a senbon, which I threw across the doorway, slipping in and sticking in the crumbling mortar between two stones. I tugged experimentally, and it slipped a little before grabbing nice and tight. I grinned as a man carrying a tall stack of something looking like blackened metal pots came tripping downstairs, just narrowly keeping from falling. I let the wire go slack for a moment, and then just as he brought his foot forward I pulled it tight again, successfully knocking him onto his face and sending the pots crashing all over the kitchen with a very raucous noise. The redhead boy, Ron wasn't it, looked impressed, and I guessed that he was a little bit of a prankster himself, but Naruto was doubled over trying to keep from giggling, so I helpfully patted him on the back to make out that he was still coughing on the milk he had swallowed wrong.

"So you use Muggle weapons and stuff?" Hermione muttered, obviously not at all amused even as I wriggled the wire loose from the senbon (which I would retrieve later) and wound it up, handing it back to Naruto. "That's not very impressive. What can you do that Ministry-trained wizards wouldn't be able to do?"

I smirked, and shoved my chair backwards a little, propping my feet up on the table. "What can we do? Well, we can believe anything that's pushed under our noses, for one. Albus told us about the Ministry is still in dog-crap denial about that guy being back from the dead. Well, I don't put much faith in revival and that, but I know that I'd rather prepare for a non-existent threat than ignore and be killed by a real one. Another thing we can do is communicate. Our arts have instilled teamwork in everything we do, whereas magic is rather… singular. It's easy to shoot a spell at somebody you thought from behind was the enemy, but it's hard to accidentally kill somebody whose chakra signature you practically have engraved in your mind." I noticed that Naruto was nodding along with me, and I thought that at least, he'd gotten a little more discreet since the last time we'd met.

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly there were two very loud sounds much like somebody slapping a concrete wall with a wooden board, and Naruto and I were both on our feet in an instant. I had my finger in the eyehole of the kunai tucked into the straps of the armor on my left shin, and Naruto already had one in hand, before we realized the source of the noise; two more red-haired people, nearly identical, but I could feel a tiny shimmy in their chakra signatures that set them apart just enough. I swore in Japanese, and sat back down; _"This is going to be one __**very**__ long year,"_ I grumbled, and Naruto agreed vaguely as he hid the kunai again, and drained his milk glass.

"Who are these guys?" asked one of the twins, whose chakra signature vibrated a little faster than the other's did, I noted. "I haven't seen them around here before." I heard Naruto sigh, because apparently he really didn't want to explain everything again, and I agreed one-hundred percent.

We didn't have to say anything, however, because Hermione, Ginny, and Ron began taking it in turns to explain us. I found it vaguely irritating to be talked about like I wasn't there, but the moment's peace gave me enough time to dig out my little digital clock and realize that it was almost ten-fifteen am, and I was starting to get a _little_ bit tired – was my thought process as I stifled what would have been an enormous yawn, had my pride not interfered.

I managed to excuse myself without bursting out in laughter at the deplorable look that I received from Naruto when he realized that I was abandoning him. It took me almost twenty minutes to fall asleep, because I could feel the glances that he kept throwing at me as he answered the questions thrown at him, and every time he looked at me I had to curl up under the thin blankets and put my hands over my mouth to keep from giggling in the most ridiculous of ways. But eventually I managed to fall asleep, around the time that Molly rounded up the kids and ushered them out of the room for some purpose or another.

-

When I awoke, Naruto was nowhere in sight, and the kitchen was filling up for dinner. Glancing down at my digital clock, I saw that it was almost seven. I glanced around for my bag, intending to find my hairbrush (I could feel each strand sticking to my neck in the worst way), but the bag wasn't where it had been when I fell asleep. In fact, it wasn't anywhere in the kitchen, that I could see. Puzzled, I crawled off of the half-flat mattress and found Molly at the stove, looking very like the conductor of the dinner orchestra. I asked her, "Do you know where my bag went? It's not where I left it last… this morning."

She turned to me, leaving the pots and pans to their directed clanging, and replied, "Oh, Naruto helped the kids and I to clean out one of the empty bedrooms, so we decided to let you two sleep up there. He already took your things up."

I sighed; way to complicate things. But all I said was, "Alright… so where is that? I mean, what room?" She told me where it was, and I went to check it out. I'd be back down for dinner, of course, but y'know. Scouting territory and all that. I found the room easy enough, but it was locked. I paused momentarily, and then noticed the tiny scribbles on each corner of the door. So he made the whole door into a blood seal? Usefully convenient, for someone like him who heals instantly. With a sigh, I cut my finger shallowly on a kunai, and wiped it on the dark, wide-grained wood. As the door creaked and sagged open, I stuck my smarting finger into my mouth and hoped it closed soon.

The interior had a gloomy sort of architecture, same as the rest of the house. It was relatively bare, furnished only by a four-poster bed and a dresser missing half the drawers. The room was only lit by the single, narrow window, partially covered by ugly, flower-patterned mauve curtains that only a woman could love. I ignored the tasteless interior, and spotted my bag in the corner. I began going through the usual morning ritual, and was just about finished when Naruto came in.

It was a little embarrassing to be caught with my shirt off by my partner, and we just stared at each other for a couple long seconds, before he stuttered something, and closed the door between us again. I felt my face get hot as I quickly changed, and before I let myself out I pressed the cool metal backs of my gloves to my cheeks in a weak attempt to get the flush down. I opened the door and Naruto and I avoided each other's eyes as he entered the boring room and I left it.

'Dinner' was great, as I expected, and I just hung around the table listening to politics. When Naruto came in, he looked rather red, but came over and said softly, _"I put up a screen… sorry for not knocking, I didn't know you were up yet."_

I nodded slightly, thoroughly embarrassed by that time, never mind that nobody understood what he said. At that time, before the silence could get any more awkward, Naruto was called away by a man who introduced himself as Arthur Weasley, and I was cornered by Hermione wanting to ask me more nosy questions, all of which I tactfully avoided on my way back to our room. the screen was indeed a great convenience, and I wondered why Naruto had thought to bring one.

-

The day that we left to get Harry Potter from his relatives' house, I was both tired and dizzy. I didn't know why I was dizzy or so abnormally tired, but it was getting on my nerves ,particularly as I nearly fell over on my way out of the house.

Our little rescue party was made up of Naruto and I, as well as Remus Lupin, Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, and a big man called Kingsley Shacklebolt whom I hadn't seen before at Grimmauld. It might have just been because I always slept through normal visiting hours, though… Apparently two out of four of those coming with us were Aurors, which I gathered was akin to ANBU, and that was reassuring (and only a tiny bit worrying; this kid needed four ANBU to retrieve him?).

We got to the house using side-along apparition, and though it didn't help with my dizziness – I wound up on the grass again – it was less uncomfortable than the first time. Must have been an acquired thing. The house that we wound up in front of was incredibly, painfully normal. The only things out of place were the big SUV not sitting in the empty driveway, and the single light on upstairs. "So that's where we're headed?" I asked quietly, pointing to number four. Kingsley nodded, and the group set off for the front door, leaving Naruto and I to trail behind and wonder why we didn't just go through the window.

The interior of the house was immaculate, of course, but it was hilarious to watch Tonks bumble around the kitchen, whispering her speculations on what the blender might be used for. _She'd never be a good shinobi,_ I thought, wincing as she broke a plate. I glanced at Naruto; even through his mask, I could tell that he was thinking pretty much the same thing.

From upstairs, though, I felt the only chakra signature in the house spike in some semblance of panic. So he heard that plate break? Sharp ears that kid had, at least. I nudged Naruto and pointed towards the stairs; he got the message, I suppose, because to the group of wizards he said, "He's noticed us now, we should just go upstairs." Everybody agreed, and our strange little party began creeping up the groaning stairs. However, the Potter kid met us at the top of the stairs. He had his wand out, pointed down at us, and I immediately tensed a little, more out of ingrained habit than concern.

Alastor spoke first, in his voice that so much reminded me of Morino Ibiki, "Lower your wand, boy, before you put someone's eye out." I nearly snorted; yes, there was definitely a resemblance to Ibiki there.

Harry seemed to recognize the voice, and I got a clue as to why in his next words; "Professor Moody?" So that scraggly old wreck had once been a teacher? Somehow, I couldn't picture it. It was like Anko helping out at the academy: impossible to imagine, and for good reason. I was brought from my musings again by Harry's voice. "What are you doing here? Who else is with you?"

"It's all right, Harry, we've come to take you away," Remus said soothingly, holding his wand aloft and putting a light to it with a murmured, "Lumos." I could see my to-be charge now, clearly lit by the tame glow from Remus's wand. He had messy black hair, more brown than my own though, and bright green eyes that reminded me of Sakura's. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt that were both too big for him. _The kid doesn't know discretion,_ was my thought as he saw Naruto and I, and his unbalanced chakra spiked weirdly in surprise and distrust. I glanced at Naruto – he shook his head minutely, though what that meant I could only guess for the time being.

Remus introduced the rest of us, and Harry relaxed enough to come down the stairs, receiving a sharp reprimand from Alastor for putting his wand in the back pocket of his jeans… and then we just hung around the kitchen for a while, waiting until we got the signal. The rest of the team had brought broomsticks for Naruto and I to ride along with them, and even though my dear companion was very excited about the opportunity, I wondered if I would be able to get off the ground. After all, weren't these things meant for _wizards_? All the same, when we pushed off into the night sky, I managed to get my balance with only a couple near-fatal screw ups. After a moment, I felt a hum of chakra under my fingers, and pushed out a little of my own chakra; the thin, barely-visible strings held fast to the broom, sticking to whatever spell made it flight-worthy. Up ahead, I saw that everyone else was starting to turn, and I instinctively jerked my hands left.

Well, I didn't _expect_ it to work, but the broom's spell spun around as I pulled it, and I gripped the thing stick with my legs as I was nearly thrown off at the sharp left turn. Naruto pulled up to my right, and tipped his mask sideways, calling through the chill air, "Try holding on, silly!" I just glared and got a shorter hold on the chakra strings, this time anticipating the split-second delay as I barrel-rolled around him. He looked more surprised at the cold glitter of my translucent chakra strings than the show of acrobatics, and drifted away a little to try it himself.

I was goofing around and trying to learn how to control my new method of flying, when I realized Alastor was trying to talk to me. I pulled up next to him, and he said, "You look like you got the hang of it now, so get up there next to Harry. Keep an eye out for anyone else coming in at us." I nodded, and pulled up next to Harry, trying simultaneously to fly straight and look around. It would have been easier if my only guiding light wasn't flying to the side of me; if I had a mental map, it would have been simple.

A few minutes further into the flight, Harry seemed to notice me and my strange method of steering. "What are you doing?" he asked; I had to more-or-less read his lips to understand. I shrugged, because I didn't know what he was asking about. "Why are you flying like that? Just hold on properly!" I caught a flutter of movement out of the corner of my eye, and rolled over to avoid a bat that hadn't noticed me. I just shrugged again, not wanting to have to take off my mask to talk. He gave me a strange look, and continued flying.

By the time we began our descent, I was soaked head to toe from flying in the clouds, and shivering uncontrollably. Even the short wait while that Potter kid figured out the message was enough to put me in a foul mood. Inside, Molly led Harry upstairs to see his friends, and I went up; to change; it wasn't fair that the kid got to dodge out of the clouds, but I still wound up in it. Apparently there was a meeting, so Naruto went in my place, since he was a little less soaked. On my way up I spotted which door the kids were staying in – just to the right of mine and Naruto's – and made a mental note of it. I ducked inside and rummaged for a clean pair of clothes, a towel, and a can of rust remover (kunai rust with almost embarrassing speed), ignoring the rather loud voices on the either side of the wall. I figured they didn't know that I was right next to them.

I stripped out of my wet clothes, carefully piling my armor aside to dry off later, and tried to get myself less frozen. I was just finished dressing, in black slacks and a turtleneck, when I heard that Potter kid hollering from next door; "So you haven't been in the meetings, big deal! You've sill been here, haven't you? I've been stuck at the Dursley's for a month! And I've handled more than you two've ever managed and Dumbledore knows it! Who saved the Sorcerer's Stone? Who got rid of Riddle? Who saved both your skins from the Dementors?" Oh, boy; another 'why me' rant. No matter how many times I heard that same sob story, it never sounded less pathetic.

With a heavy sigh, I draped the towel over the screen and stepped out into the hall. I could hear his friends trying to voice their condolences over his shouting. I opened the door in time to hear at full volume, "… Nicking papers out of bins to try and figure out what's…"

"Mind keeping it down?" I growled, folding my arms to show my displeasure. "Other people on this floor are trying to hear themselves think, you know."

Apparently they hadn't known that I was there after all, from their surprised faces. Hermione apologized in a tiny voice, and I left. It wasn't until I was back in my room that I heard them again, voices noticeably quieter than before. I went about messing with my weapons, some of which already had a layer of rust on them, as well as drying off the hard, bony parts of my armor (I still couldn't put a name to the material they were made of), and set it out to let the cloth parts air-dry.

I showed up downstairs for the very tail end of the meeting, and while Molly went upstairs to get the kids for dinner, Naruto summarized what had been discussed. "There was a lot of talk about the hearing at the ministry, which is apparently going to be on the twelfth," he said in a whisper, tapping a kunai nervously on the table. When I pointed out to him that he was doing it, however, he quit and put the kunai away. "Well, there was a lot of other stuff that for the most part doesn't concern us, but the plan is that after dinner Albus will come back with a Pensive, which is this thing that allows others to see memories that you put into it. So Harry is going to put his memories of the attack into the Pensive, and we're going to look at them and make a convincing story about his doing magic only out of self-defense." I just nodded, and stared back towards the stairs; seemed like an awfully complicated plan to me. Oh well, it is what it is, and if Albus believes that that's the best way to go about it, then so be it. I won't argue with somebody who could levitate me out a window while I was bathing.

-

For me, at least, the days until the hearing on the twelfth passed with speed and grace, mostly because I either slept, read, or meditated through it. It was an easy way to spend five days; at least, easier than what Naruto claimed to having been put through. Every evening ('morning,' I still think) he showed up looking dead on his feet, and claiming to having been put through the cleaning spree from hell. Admittedly, the house was beginning to feel less diseased and evil, and slightly more presentable, though only slightly. I graciously told Naruto that I attributed that feeling entirely to his work and his alone, which made him grin like the moron he had grown out of being and go about it without complaint.

I felt oddly energized when we left for the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, and I was certainly less annoyed than I had thought I would be about this whole ordeal. Perhaps I could attribute my passiveness to the fact that we were taking the subway to the Ministry, and the normalcy made the stranger part of my sense of humor flare up. When we got there, we all squeezed into a tiny phone booth, and stood around in very uncomfortable silence while Arthur Weasley messed around, and finally a voice spoke, like in those sci-fi movies; _"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."_

Arthur froze up for a long second, and then said uncertainly, "Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, here to escort Harry Potter, who has been asked to attend a disciplinary hearing, as well as Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, who are testifying in the same hearing." I rolled my eyes at Naruto from behind my mask; he could practically look through the eyeholes and see my expression anyway, we were squeezed so tight into the telephone box. Did this guy insist on giving away way more information than was necessary? How _hadn't_ these wizards been destroyed yet?

_Probably because their enemy is just as stupid,_ I reasoned, as Arthur pushed a little metal badge into my hand. I glanced down at it – it read _Saske Uchiha, Disciplinary Hearing_ on it; way to misspell my name _and_ make me sound like a misfit – and pocketed it immediately. The voice said something else that I didn't hear because I didn't care, and with a sudden lurch the bottom of the phone booth began to move downwards. For a moment we were in total darkness, and then slowly we emerged into an enormous hall. Arthur led us straight to a desk with a sign marking it as 'security,' and said, "I'm escorting a couple guests."

The wizard stared at him for a second, and then said, "… Step over here, then." He held up a long, thin, golden rod, which I stared at apprehensively. _Does that work like a metal detector or something?_ I wondered, as he passed it up and down Harry's front and back, and then turned to me. Honestly, with the way he was poking me with that thing, it was all I could do not to snap it in half. It took a couple minutes to explain to the guy that Naruto and I didn't have wands, and then we got into the elevator to go up to Arthur's office. We had more than an hour before the actual hearing, during which I had no idea what we were meant to do, but of course that wasn't important.

The elevator ride was… informative… and the talk with Kingsley Shacklebolt along the way gave me some insight into how to act in this situation. However, as soon as we spotted… Perkins, wasn't it? He gave us some bad news; they had changed the time and location of the hearing, such that we were not _late_. I was disgusted; it was the kind of thing the Council of Elders would have done to someone like Naruto (they actually did try it once, and the only reason they hadn't gone through with something absolutely horrid was because Tsunade threw a fit of epic proportions). But we got back in the lift again, and waited impatiently as it rattled all the way down to level nine. As soon as we reached courtroom ten, Arthur ushered Naruto, Harry and I inside.

Frankly, I was a little nervous. If these were the sorts of people who tried to make important people late to important meetings, I wasn't sure I wanted to be here (and testifying with a lie, what a joke), but I really had no choice. The room that we ended up in was round, and there were high benches all around. In the middle was a single chair, which I assumed was for Harry to sit in, since Naruto and I were more or less spectators for the time being. He seemed to understand that too, and so went to take his seat with one desperate glance over his shoulder. As soon as he was seated, a deep voice called from high above, "You're late."

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AN: Well, that's it. I believe that it's quite a bit shorter than the previous two chapters, but…


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto.

AN: I finished this chapter much quicker than I expected… Thank you to everyone who reviewed or alerted this story! It makes it so much easier to write, knowing that there are people waiting for it to come out. I apologize for any typo's that I haven't spotted yet.

* * *

I stared up at the strange wizard above my head in a mixture of distaste and humor. I suppose that all wizards have at least a small flare for dramatics. Harry, though, looked like he was going to make a lame excuse, so I beat him to the punch; I stepped forward and bowed shortly, saying, "My humble apologies, sir. There is no adequate excuse for our belatedness." He seemed slightly impressed, though it may have been at my bow, since people didn't regularly do that in this country, but either way he dropped the subject quickly.

"… Very well. The accused being present, let us begin." He straightened a little in his chair, and continued about listing the normal information, his over-excited scribe writing as fast as possible. I noticed that the one taking notes did look a lot like one of the Weasley clan, and stored the information away for later. I tuned back in to what was being said when I heard my name; "… Witnesses for the defense, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki." He continued over the charges, and then turned to stare at Harry. "You are Harry James Potter of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" he queried. Harry just nodded. "You received an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago, did you not?"

Harry nodded again, and tried to add his two-cents: "Yes, but that—"

"And yet you conjured a Patronus on the night of the second of August?"

"Yes, but—"

"_Knowing_ that you are not permitted to use magic outside school while you are under the age of seventeen?"

I zoned out for a moment, staring blankly at Naruto's right arm, because it was just banter. Pointless banter. Why were we even there again? I suddenly blinked and snapped back to attention when Harry shouted, "Yes, but I did it because of the Dementors!"

There was total silence in the court room. After a moment, the gray-haired woman whose name I had missed straightened her monocle and said, "Dementors? What do you mean, boy?" Slowly, the muttering began to return to the court, and I took it as my turn to speak up.

"There were two Dementors in that alleyway with them," I said, making sure that my voice was clear even through the mask (which I had no intention of taking off for these idiots). "Even though I'm not a wizard in the classic sense, I can see them."

The haughty man stared down at me (it would be hard not to, I suppose), and said reluctantly, "Very well, what is your story?"

I remained silent for a moment, welling up the story that we had prepared. Eventually, I said, "My companion and I were in the area, when he sensed them from a ways off… Naruto is particularly good at sensing things like that. We had no idea what Dementors were doing in such a densely populated area, so we headed over to see what was going on. We arrived in time to see Harry here light his wand. He set the Patronus on the first one pretty quick after that, and before we could even run over there he had gotten rid of the second one and his neighbor showed up and took him and the other boy somewhere else—I assume to their house, though we didn't stick around to see."

Immediately, there was a response; "Describe the Dementors, please. You claim to be able to see them, though you aren't wizards." It came from the gray-haired witch again, and I nodded indulgently.

"They're very tall, or at least look that way because they float above the ground," I began. Start simple, that's best. Things you notice first. "I've never had the misfortune of being close enough to one to tell. They wear big cloaks that cover all of them except their hands, which look like skeletons. And when they're close by…" I considered shuddering to add to the effect, but my pride wouldn't allow it. "It gets very cold, and… you are forced to remember things you'd rather not." Even without going through that experience, I could think of what I would be reliving, and from the way Naruto was staring at me, he knew it too.

The Wizengamot, regardless, were impressed enough to drop the question. I saw it, and I know that Naruto saw it: these wizards, no matter how strange, were swayed relatively easily by the emotion known as pity. And we, as shinobi known as liars, could take full advantage of that. I nodded to Naruto, letting him know that he should speak next. At last, there was a break from the obnoxiously loud white noise as a man leaned over and whispered into the ear of the man who had been carrying out most of the hearing. There was a nod, and a return whisper, before he said to the room aloud, "The Wizengamot requests that the two of you remove your masks, for recording purposes." That was a lie, and Naruto and I both knew it, but it was a request that could get us places. He nodded to me, and I reached up and pulled off my mask, setting it sideways on my head. Naruto spun his all the way around to the back.

Immediately the air turned rather excited, and it was over whispered conversations of 'Are they still in school?' 'Under those masks, I expected full-grown men…' 'It's rather suspicious all by itself, isn't it?' that the hearing seemed to be turned unto the group in the benches, and left us three on the ground level to stand there and wait. Even after they managed to think of more—mainly trivial—questions to ask, I simply remained silent and stared around at the mismatched group of wizards, tactfully unified by their outfits, while Naruto did the talking. He had always been better at that anyway, must have been a family trait.

The end result was anticlimactic, with Fudge somewhat reluctantly declaring that the evidence against Harry was indecisive in comparison to the evidence _for_, and so he was let off the hook completely, and the incident with the Dementors would be looked into. I somewhat doubted it, but bowed and placed my mask back over my face on the way out. Professional coming and going, I had once heard someone say, and judging by the fact that it had either been Shikamaru or my ex-ANBU captain who said it, I trusted that information totally. It seemed to have worked so far.

Outside, Mr. Weasley was looking incredibly antsy, and when he spotted Harry he immediately rushed over and stared at him hopefully. Harry just grinned, and apparently that was enough of an answer. "I'll take you home right away to let the others know the good news!"

-

Everyone had been incredibly overjoyed when Harry came home with his wand. As Ron and Hermione (apparently his two best friends at school) pounced on him and displayed their gratitude, I just rolled my eyes and went to find something to eat before I went to bed and squeezed in what few hours of sleep I could before having to submit myself to wizard transportation once again. Though in the kitchen, there was an infectious sort of delight floating around that had even _me_ feeling a little glad about the whole thing. Half of our mission would have been down the drain if this kid couldn't go to that school anymore, right? But I shook it off, and as soon as I had eaten fell almost immediately asleep.

I didn't wake up until Naruto was shaking me, and saying loudly, "Come on Sasuke, I know it's really late for you, but we've gotta go soon!" I looked up, and blinked repeatedly, before raising my hand and glancing down at my clock – just as it began making its blaring noise to wake me up. I just sighed; Naruto had the most wonderful timing, really he did, and it was only _four thirty_ so no wonder I was tired.

We packed quickly, since there wasn't really anything spread all over the house to collect, and were ready to go by five. Molly offered me something to eat, and even though I wasn't really hungry because I had woken up too early, I ate anyway because I would be starving in a couple hours if I didn't get food now. We went through the fireplace to Hogwarts – they called it Floo, I remembered – and I managed to keep 'breakfast' down when I fell out of the fire onto the cold stone floor, dropping my duffel back right beside me.

Apparently, it was Albus's office; he was already there, smiling down at me even as I rolled aside so Naruto didn't land on me when he came out, too. It was frustrating how almost easily he caught himself on his feet, and I stood up and nodded to Albus. The old wizard stared at us for a moment, before finally saying, "Welcome to Hogwarts, then. How was the trip?"

"Sickening," I grumbled. "That's one of the most unpleasant things I've ever felt, short of salmonella poisoning. Travel isn't supposed to make you want to vomit." Naruto laughed at me, at least a little bit, but stifled it quickly, and I just glanced at him. Albus seemed amused by my response (but then, didn't that man _always_ look like he had something to laugh about?), and led us out of his office. I made to bring my bag, but he laughed light-heartedly and told me to leave it where it was.

We got what felt like an abbreviated version of the full tour, which I found strange because we would need to be intimately familiar with this territory by the time September rolled around. He showed us where the kitchens were, as well as all four houses' common rooms, the Great Hall and the entrance hall, the towers, a general tour of the classrooms, and then we went outside. By that time I suppose word had gotten around the school that we were there, because all of the teachers (or at least a lot of them; I did a quick count, and it came out about even to what I expected from our tour) were standing on the lawn and chatting amiably.

I officially liked the grounds best; the tall, imposing forest reminded me of home in Konoha, a place that I almost missed, and the wide open grass was perfect for sparring. There was even a lake that would have been perfect to practice chakra control on, for genin at least. Looking further out, I could see high mountains far off in the distance, and closer up I could see what looked like a sporting arena of some sort, though it was obviously too high up in the air for any – _oh_. Quidditch, that's right; the sport played on brooms. I trailed a little ways behind Albus as he went over to the professors and spoke to them. Naruto dropped back to level with me, and said, _"It looks a little like the Fire Country, doesn't it? Nostalgic."_

For several moments I couldn't think of a proper response; yeah, it was nostalgic, but not necessarily welcome. But eventually I said, _"More than that, it sort of makes me wish I had a genin team. I always wished to someday find out what Kakashi had to put up with us. I'm a strong believer in that kind of karma."_ Naruto laughed, and threw his head back for a second to stare at the late summer pale-blue sky.

Around that time, Albus said politely, "I would like to introduce to you Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha." I nodded in acknowledgement and removed my mask; a second later Naruto did the same. The teachers seemed surprised that we were the age we were – but then wasn't everyone in this society? – and Albus continued. "Naruto, Sasuke, may I introduce my staff—" And he went on down the line; Potions, Transfiguration, Muggle Studies, Divination, Ancient Runes, Arithmetic, Care of Magical Creatures, Astrology, Charms, History of Magic… it made one's head spin. All of these various topics, each a separate and valid field of study, when in the academy we had had ninjutsu, weapons, taijutsu, history, and theory, and everything else was self-taught or tutored into you. I had never liked structured school much back then, and that emotion was enforced now.

But finally we got to the part I was actually looking forward to: 'please demonstrate your skills.' He just had to say those words, and Naruto's face split into a grin as he retorted, "What level of damage control?" I snorted, more because it was a valid question that at the number of eyebrows it raised. "I mean, if you care about landscaping, we might want to tone it down a little… if you get what I mean…"

"For now, Mr. Uzumaki, we need to see the full scope of your abilities," Albus said peacefully, "So please show us everything." That was all the cue we needed, as we jumped a ways away, facing each other with a couple feet between us. Taijutsu first: might as well start with the stuff that wasn't hardly as interesting, before we got mixed up in genjutsu – useful but confusing to watch – and ninjutsu – of course, rather flashy and destructive.

It was just another of our spars – granted, slightly more flashy and destructive than was average for sparring, and perhaps more so than most shinobi battles in general, but it got the point across. And underneath all that, it _was_ still a sparring session. It took nearly half an hour to finish, both of us tired out from chakra use and in need of a shower. As soon as we came to a halt, though, there was a stunned sort of applause from the observing teachers. Naruto grinned happily, and I smirked a little; at least someone can still appreciate a good fight. I _hoped_ I would get a chance to fight like that on this mission, though it wasn't likely.

Albus showed us the room we would be using – a door on one of the corridors leading between the kitchen and entrance hall – and I took the opportunity to take a nap. I'd get a shower later, but for the time being I was tired, and wanted to sleep for a couple more hours before starting my 'day.' I set up the inflatable mattress because there was only one bed, even though I took it for the time being. And it was certainly more comfortable than the mattress, let me tell you, so I fell asleep easily despite being rather awake and when I woke up it was almost ten twenty-five p.m., but it didn't strike me as odd that Naruto wasn't there yet.

Immediately I got up and got together a spare set of clothes, before setting off for the bathroom; I vaguely remember there being one on the fourth floor that was particularly nice. When I got there, it turned out that there was a password. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to remember what Albus had said it was… "Pink fauna." Well, everybody has their eccentricities, right? As the door sagged open I let myself in, and closed it quickly. It was steamy in the bathroom, even though obviously nobody had used this place for several months. I grabbed a couple towels, and set that and my spare clothes down next to the large, pool-like bath. I dipped my fingers in the water – it was hot, which was something I would have wondered at longer had I not remembered our current hosts' abilities – so I undressed quickly and slipped into the pool. It was deep, but I could still touch the bottom (at least near the edge), and I slid underwater quickly to get my hair wet, before swimming around the bath-pool in long circles.

It was refreshing and a good way to wake up – and it made me aware of the actual, slightly chilly temperature in the castle, when I stuck my head out of the water and felt the cool air against my skin, pink from the hot water. Around the edge of the pool I saw that there were many different faucets, and I wondered what they could be for… it must have been soap, I reasoned, since there was no shampoo bottles around and that would be an obvious necessity in a bathroom. I tried one of the taps, and a thick blue froth came gushing out, surprising me immensely, and forcing me to instinctually shut the faucet off. I swore quietly, now staring at the mess of foam floating in front of me, before trying to rub it into my hair. It worked surprisingly well, and I was glad that the scent, while strong by itself, didn't cling to my hair too strongly.

For a while I just floated in the perpetually-hot water, until I vaguely heard my alarm clock beep twice, signaling the arrival of eleven o'clock. With a long sigh I pulled myself out of the water, still just as hot as it had been when I got in it, and buried my face in the fluffy towel. This bathroom – I liked it. From what Albus had said it didn't get a lot of use, since only a small group could use it to begin with, and I could see why not all of the bathrooms would be this way; in a castle the size of Hogwarts, to have bathrooms with something like this in all of them would be impractical.

As soon as I opened the door to leave, I found myself face-to-face with a rather ugly ghost, hanging upside down directly in front of me. Through instinct I jumped back and grabbed a small shuriken, the only weapon I had brought with me, before forcibly relaxing a little and hiding the weapon again. "What do you think you're doing?" I asked calmly – I wasn't surprised all that much by ghosts, since Albus had explained that there were many in Hogwarts, but it was still a little of a surprise to see one for the first time. Weren't they usually transparent and insubstantial? This one looked normal, except for the obvious hanging upside down and floating aspects. Oh right, this must be the poltergeist then…

The poltergeist sniggered, and pulled an obscene face. "Ickle freak is taking baths at odd hours," he said in a high-pitched and piggish voice. "Ought to tell the Headmaster, oughtn't I?" He stuck his thumbs in his ears and waggled them obnoxiously. Abruptly, I reached out and grabbed his nose, twisting violently to the right.

"Listen, you little brat," I grumbled, speaking over his loud protestant babblings, "Stay out of my face. I don't care if you're an 'indestructible spirit,' you're solid enough for me to do some damage. I'm not a student, and Albus knows about my peculiar sleeping habits, so he won't give you a second glance. What's your name?" I loosened my grip so his voice wouldn't be muffled terribly, but not enough that he would pull away.

Still he just stared at me for some time, before saying thickly, "Peeves. 'Et go of be dose, p'ease." Naturally I let go, since I hadn't been fishing for anything nearly as nice as 'please.' He spiraled a few feet away in the air, and regarded me warily for a moment, before wheeling around and flying off with a cackle that sounded less delighted than I had expected from a poltergeist of his caliber. I just snorted, and returned to the bedroom to drop off the clothes I had slept in. It wasn't surprising to find Naruto there, snoring in a half-hearted sort of way that I found a little endearing, and I left as quietly as possible, though not without snatching my mask from the top of the dresser. I slipped it on as I headed for the library; even if everyone here knew what I looked like already, it made me feel self-conscious to have people judging my worth on my age and appearance. Besides my own insecurities, it was part of the uniform, and it was as unprofessional in my mind to walk around without my mask as to walk around… without shoes on.

The library was very dark, and a boring and dusty sort of place. Exactly the way I expected it to be. And despite the initial appearance being rather small, it was actually quite large and had a _lot_ of books. I took my time looking around, before settling down in the History section and setting to work.

Hours later found me squinting blearily at a line of text scrawled in the margin of a Charms book by someone whose print was so ridiculously tiny, they should tie a magnifying glass to everything they wrote on as common courtesy. _'The larger the swirl…'_ With a loud sigh, I slammed the book shut (slipping my thumb between the pages, because no matter how annoyed I was I didn't want to lose my spot) and dropped it onto my lap. "Wizards are so impossible," I whispered, and fumbled around for my digital clock – five forty a.m.

It was around that time that I realized that my stomach felt as if it were eating itself, and so I replaced my thumb with a bookmark and left for the kitchens. I got lost a couple times, and wound up _very_ frustrated at the fruit bowl painting (the pear hadn't been feeling particularly ticklish, so it took a couple tries), but I got inside. The house-elves were as tiny and helpful as they had been when Albus brought us through earlier, and a couple of them even remembered me. I skipped out on the coffee this time, since it wouldn't be long until I would be going to sleep, but those little midgets made some pretty good soup, after I explained that it was dinner and not breakfast for me.

After I finished I wandered around the castle for a while, had a couple chats with some portraits and ghosts, got a little bit turned around in one of the towers, and eventually found my way back to the entrance hall. It was lucky for me that the castle held an 'all roads lead to Rome' sort of organization, or I would probably have ended up sleeping in a corner. Naruto was still asleep when I got back, so I silently climbed onto the air mattress, and about the time I gave up complaining about the comfort level and drifted into sleep, it was seven o'clock and Naruto had woken up, so I crawled into the bed again as he left with a quick apology to me. I wanted to hit myself for getting so worn out and not even getting to hardly talk to Naruto at all, but ended up falling fast asleep before I could actually do anything about it.

-

All of the time that we had between our arrival at Hogwarts and September the first was spent mapping out the grounds and practically absorbing the contents of the library. I saw over the course of that stay that my sleeping schedule was starting to drift back towards normal (I now slept from early afternoon to sometime between nine and midnight), and that even Peeves had become a little bit hospitable towards me, even if he did have an annoying habit of covering his nose with both hands if I surprised him from behind. I made a point of spending as much time with Naruto as our sleeping patterns had in common, and we frequently sparred either on the grounds or the strange room on the seventh floor, which Naruto and I took to calling the Necessity Room, even if the house-elves called it by a much more abstract name.

There had been several times when we had been sparring, balanced on top of the lake by the smallest flow of chakra possible, when we had gathered one or two of the professors as an audience. They didn't say anything the entire time, and just left after we finished, but I could tell that they were a little impressed, and a lot glad that we were there. I had heard the story about the year that the Dementors had stood guard at the school, and I think that the long-standing teachers approved of these much more human guards, than a bunch of soul-sucking monsters who interrupted Quidditch matches for no reason better than a good meal.

On the first day of September, it was mid-morning and I was on the roof when I felt a flare in Naruto's chakra signature, tempered in the way that meant he needed to talk to me about something important but not life-threatening. I smiled, pleased to once again be reminded of the irreplaceable recognition between us, and then crawled down the vertical stone wall, with an answering fluctuation of chakra. He met me at the front gate, and we greeted each other in a way that, in the shadows of my mind, I wished was a little more intimate than just banging our fists together, and he said, _"Albus is making a portkey to take us to the train station. We're supposed to meet him in his office at ten forty."_ I nodded in agreement and glanced at my clock – reading ten fifteen – and we both turned back to the castle.

There wasn't a lot of stuff that we had to bring with, since it wasn't exactly a good idea to be armed to the teeth when on a train with a bunch of _children_, so it was mostly cleanup and wrapping up any business that we had before heading to Albus's office. He was waiting there, holding a ragged 'Business' section of the paper from a week ago, with the biggest smile you'd ever expect on his face. I was immediately suspicious of the method of transportation known by the name 'portkey,' because whatever it was to make him smile like that, it must be even less comfortable than floo.

Quite the case. The old man gave us a very brief explanation of what to expect, and then shoved the paper into our hands, leaving barely five seconds before we were yanked off of solid ground and thrown around in circles by some deranged version of centrifugal force, before finally touching down and slamming into each other's shoulders, leaving us both with headaches and on the ground, and with no idea where our magical newspaper went, as we had dropped it and it had blown off with all the rest of the discarded news. I rubbed my head and glanced around the station, in which our sudden appearance was surprisingly inconspicuous, and offered my hand to help Naruto up. He accepted it with a grateful squeeze, and we looked around immediately for platform numbers.

I spotted it first, and lightly elbowed Naruto, muttering through my mask, _"Seven, right there."_ He found the next one, pretty much right above our heads, which was six; so we made our way to nine and a half in the direction of the first sign I saw. Even the concept of walking through a solid barrier was very strange, though, and it took a couple moments for me to let go of my stubbornness and slip effortlessly through the metal. It felt like a genjutsu, though I figured that I wouldn't be able to dispel it easily, if it was possible at all.

The train was bright red, and easily the most noticeable thing around. The station was full of families busy saying good-bye to their students for the year, and with everybody otherwise occupied we managed to slip through without anyone really noticing. Aboard the train we both set up small genjutsu around ourselves, and whispered to each other the plan. Naruto would cover the length of the train, and I would keep an eye on Potter and whatever company he was with.

I found him as he was entering the train; he and the other two, whom I had been informed were made Prefects, split up there, and he lugged his trunk all the way to the other end of the train, where he ended up seating with Ginny, and two others whom I didn't recognize but who were conveniently introduced to each other as Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood.

Close to 11:00 was when the train finally pulled away from the station, with me against the ceiling, the cheap genjutsu hiding only the sight of me, so I had to be very careful that I didn't speak or (God forbid) fall on them, and there wasn't anywhere in the room that I would be able to stand without the chance that somebody would bump into me, because it was more than likely that that would break the illusion. I disliked this secrecy, particularly when I was sure that Harry at least knew that we were on the train somewhere. All the same… I put up with it because it was my job, and I was getting paid a rather absurd amount of money to do it right.

When the Longbottom kid pulled out a… cactus thing with a quite impossible title, I felt a little wary; it looked very much like something that belonged in the body of a dying man who had smoked for sixty of his seventy years. And then he made as if to poke it with a feather quill… needless to say, I got out of there quickly, with enough speed that as they flinched at the spurting pus-like liquid nobody noticed the minute opening and closing of the compartment door. I glanced back in – sniggering at the sight they made, covered in green goop – and then crawled up onto the ceiling of the car, crawling along the end to try to find Naruto. I didn't want to go back in there yet, so it would be the perfect opportunity to take a breather.

As a matter of fact, he found _me_ before I had even reached the end of the car before Naruto found me. He sniffed slightly, and said almost silently, _"What did you get into? That's probably the most disgusting thing I've ever smelled."_

Affronted, I responded, _"I didn't get into anything. In fact, I think it was quite an achievement to escape from that crud. Longbottom had a plant of some sort… I'm sure that that's what you smell."_ I didn't much like that topic, so I changed it easily away from myself; _"How are things everywhere else?"_

I couldn't exactly see him, more like a shaky outline and a much firmer understanding of where his chakra signature was, so it was the tiny spike in his chakra and not whatever motion he made with his body that told me how he had responded. _"Same old, same old. Couple kids got into a fight, but they just used their fists, so I left them to it. A seventh year girl got lucky in the bathroom, but I'm not even going to go into that…"_ I was really glad that he wasn't going to. What these kids did in their personal time was none of our business, and I hoped never to have the misfortune of stumbling across one of those escapades. However, any continuation of our conversation was cut short as the door of the car opened and Ron and Hermione came in, bickering in lowered voices. I watched them as they headed back to the compartment in which Potter was sitting, before nodding to Naruto and following them back into the compartment – I just barely managed to slip through without hitting the Weasley boy in the back of his head.

The pus, I was glad to see, was cleaned up, so I gladly settled onto the ceiling and listened to their mundane talk about prefect duties and magazines. In fact, the only interesting thing that happened throughout the entire train ride was Draco Malfoy's (from what I understood) annual visit in a dry attempt to get Potter into trouble before the year started. As soon as the train pulled to a stop in the station, I followed Potter's group out of the train, and then took the short trip across the lake back to the castle. Naruto would be along soon, I knew, so I'd be waiting for him in the Great Hall.

Albus had explained to us before we left how the evening would go; after arriving by train, we'd do a head-count of all the students who got into the carriages and those who went on the boats, and make sure that it matched up both with the number of people whom Albus expected and whom entered the hall. When I was settled just off to the left of the staff table I stealthily lifted the genjutsu. The few students who were already in the hall didn't notice me right away, so it didn't seem too glaringly obvious that I had appeared out of nowhere (which I had, to their eyes).

I kept a running count of all the students who entered the Great Hall, since Naruto wasn't here yet to tell me how many students had come off the train. I was somewhere around seventy-five in the count when Naruto showed up with a barely-visible flicker that stirred up what little dust there was on the floor. He whispered the numbers to me, and I whispered what count I had back to him, and we sat there and counted the students steadily trickling through the door. I wasn't sure how, but we managed to never counted the same person twice, and the number that came in matched up perfectly with what Naruto had counted.

The rest of the feast passed by without me hardly caring, because I realized about that time that I was dead tired, having been up five or six hours past when I usually went to sleep. I drifted off for a little while before the feast ended, and only woke up when Naruto nudged me discreetly. _"He's explaining the reason for our being here now,"_ he said quietly, nodding his head at Albus, who was indeed standing to speak.

"I only have one more topic of discussion to get to before you all go up to bed for tonight. This year, there will be two guards at Hogwarts, solely for the protection of you, the students. As you may have noticed, these two…" He gestured at us, and I saw every student's head turn to stare at us, "… Are the guards. They have requested that they be introduced to you as Kitsune, the blonde, and Karasu. These two are here to protect you and the school, so I suggest that you don't do anything to interfere with that process, or to make them angry. That is all – I assume that you all wish to be heading to bed after that big meal, so I won't keep you from it any longer." There was a massive influx of noise at those words, as everybody suddenly began talking to one another, and fairly stampeding out of the hall.

On our way out of the hall, I yawned widely and nearly fell over; luckily, Naruto caught me, but he muttered, _"Just go to bed, okay? I've got to make sure that everybody gets to their common rooms, but you won't be any help if you're so tired you can't walk straight. Go. To. Bed."_ With a hesitant nod, I made my way to our room and fell asleep pretty much immediately.

-

I woke up feeling extremely groggy, and didn't even open my eyes for several minutes, just tried to get my mind active enough to register even how light it was beyond my eyelids. Slowly, I rolled over and groaned, stretching my arms and squinting against the thin amount of light that was coming through the window. Quite suddenly, my hip found the edge of the bed and I ended up on the floor tangled in the blankets. I heard a loud laugh, and someone (I assumed Naruto; I wasn't awake enough to actually recognize his voice) said, _"That's the first time I've actually seen someone fall out of bed! You really did have a late night, eh, Sasuke?"_ I just groaned in response, and pressed my palm to my forehead as I curled into the fetal position – since I couldn't exactly move my legs independently of each other, I didn't even try to move much.

Slowly, I began to get used to being awake, and tried to undo the blankets wrapped so tightly around my legs, but could make absolutely no progress even after wiggling around for a good five minutes. Finally I sent an exasperated glare at Naruto, and grumbled, _"There is no way in hell that I'm getting out of this, so get your weapon of choice already."_ He laughed quietly again, and then reached for a kunai that was lying on the dresser next to him.

As he was carefully slicing through the layers of fabric and trying his best _not_ to fillet my thigh, he chuckled and said, _"I'm curious, though… if I weren't here, would you have rolled around on the floor and tried to untie yourself, yelled for help, or crawled over to the dresser like a worm?"_ I flushed at the simile, and refused to respond, opting instead to prop myself up on my elbows and stare at the ceiling. He glanced up at me, and smiled slightly; _"Oh come on. It's an honest question. What would you do?"_

I winced as I felt the knife pass dangerously close to the inside of my thigh, and responded slowly, _"I probably would have… ended up wasting my chakra throwing it around until you noticed me. And if you didn't notice before I ran out of chakra, __**then**__ and only then would I… crawl to the dresser. Can you please be more careful? I don't want to have to throw out a perfectly good pair of pants because I overslept."_ Naruto snorted, but went noticeably more carefully about slicing through the layers of fabric, even if it was even slower after that point.

Naturally, it didn't take me long to realize that the entire process was getting a little embarrassing, though I didn't know what to attribute that to, and I shut down that line of thought immediately by staring at my clock and counting the seconds backwards – it was only six forty-five. Knowing why it was embarrassing would only make it _more_ embarrassing, and since Naruto didn't seem to have noticed how unnaturally red my face was, I didn't exactly care to have him noticing. So I hid my face with my elbow, and every time I felt him pause I shifted around to see if I could get out yet. Eventually, Naruto spoke again; _"… Do you want to watch Harry during classes today? Since your day started out the worst, I suppose I should give you the choice. It's that, or patrol the school and grounds; one of us has to do it."_

I smiled weakly. _"Not much of a choice,"_ I said thoughtfully. Suddenly he nicked me just above my knee, and I swore loudly. He apologized immediately, of course, and scrambled for the med kit, as I suddenly found that I could shake off the rest of the blankets. _"See, I told you it was sharp, right? Ugh, you cut me good, hurry up there."_ I pressed my hand over the wound that was now dribbling all over the floor, and squeezed unexpectedly as it stung. Even as he slicked anesthetic over the cut and stuck down the bandage I hissed rather colorful curses, even if it didn't _hurt_ that much because now I was pissed off about the whole thing. _"… Okay, I'll take Harry. We pretty much set that out on the train, and I think it's easier if we don't shuffle around a lot; little things might get lost."_

He nodded, apparently satisfied, and stood up, leaning over backwards to crack his back in a way that made me flinch. _"Well all right then. It's fine with me. I don't exactly have a time to get to work, but if you want to eat you should probably get going soon."_ He grinned, before grabbing his mask and holding it over his face. Cocking his head to one side, he asked comically, _"What's wrong? Does that little cut hurt so bad you can't even stand up?"_

I promptly threw my mask at him, but he escaped out the door with a laugh, and it hit the wall harmlessly. With a sigh I stood up and got dressed for another long day – I was glad that my sleeping pattern was back on schedule, at least, since there really wasn't anything to _do_ if I stayed up all night. I thought for a while about what weapons I should take in the situation that I didn't expect an attack but it would be very bad if I was confronted without them, and eventually decided on a little of everything but left my katana behind. The first stop was the kitchens, since I wasn't going to take off my mask to eat in front of the entire school. And I would have to hurry, too, because it was my _job_ to not be late. I wasn't exactly looking forward to the first day of school though, judging from the way my day had started. I believed in omens, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto.

AN: I'm sorry about taking so long; school finally started, and I always freak out in the first two weeks of school about turning things in on time. Plus, my school is totally re-organized, so I can never find anything, and… it's a bad excuse for being late which everyone uses, but it's _true_. I also had writing-block issues starting this chapter… but I refuse to use that as an excuse. It's awfully short in comparison to previous ones, too…

Here's a question for you people who actually read this note: in Naruto, when Hidan's head is cut off, can his body still move around?

* * *

That evening, as Naruto and I sat in the kitchens and ate, we talked about how the first day had gone. I didn't really want to talk about it, but Naruto prodded me into it with, _"If you tell me how it went, I'll tell you what awesome discovery I made today." _So of course he won in the end.

"_Well, it was pretty hum-drum all day, since I didn't know what they were talking about in most of the classes,"_ I said, taking a pause in eating the steak that the house elves had provided me with. _"That class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, sounded pretty interesting originally, but the teacher has them doing just book work. Apparently that isn't standard, though, because several of the students complained. Well, in the end, Potter got detention, and so now I'm going to have to watch him do that, too."_ I stabbed grumpily at my plate. _"So what's your amazing news?"_

My partner beamed at me happily; _"There's a wild car running around in the forest!"_ I just stared at him. _"I kept hearing its horn when I was outside, and when I followed the sound into the forest, I found it. It's this blue car, I guess it's a Ford, and it sort of acted all skittish around me. You know, like a wild animal. It was really cool."_

I just sighed. Leave it to Naruto to make friends with the local magical car. _"I suppose that's marginally interesting,"_ I said begrudgingly. _"Do you… Are you up for some sparring this evening?"_ He nodded enthusiastically, so we left as soon as he had finished slurping down his soup.

We ended up choosing the lake to spar on; there was little to no chance of disturbing anyone, there would be no gigantic gouge or burn marks on the ground the next day, and the giant squid seemed to enjoy the company… though my excuse was that it helped my reflexes when it came to dodging third parties.

When we got back to our room, Naruto was laughing at a joke he had just told, and I was just barely smirking – because it wasn't half as funny as he thought it was, and I wouldn't actually _laugh_ at it anyway – but when we reached the door, I was dismayed to find it hanging off the hinges, the doorknob bent awkwardly as if hit with a mallet.

As I pushed the door open I saw that nothing was immediately missing, though there was a residual chakra in the room that I didn't recognize. I glanced at the back of the door and saw that the thin lines of ink that Naruto had used to set up the seal, thin and almost invisible as they were, had been scored and thoroughly obliterated, essentially rendering them useless. And as we quickly and silently took inventory of everything in the room, I found that all of my containing scrolls had been slashed open, though most of the contents were still in the room. In fact, the only things missing were the scrolls that I had taken from Orochimaru's hideout before we had left the Hidden Countries.

Needless to say, 'the only things' was a bad way to phrase the statement; in the wrong hands, those scrolls could easily be more cataclysmic than anything the Wizarding world would ever conceive. After all, they contained secrets regarding the nine bijuu and Orochimaru's pseudo immortality. As Naruto and I searched for them I was silently working myself into a fit of worry; they were my responsibility, and if the world got destroyed on my watch then the ex-shinobi community would obviously have a bone to pick with me. _"I have this sneaking feeling that we could use Neji right about now,"_ I said flatly, throwing my shirt at the bed. _"Can you call him while I tell Albus that we need to lock the school down?"_

Naruto nodded and I ran for Albus's office just as fast as I could; the gargoyle slowed me down a little, but I still managed to make it into the office in a record fifty seconds. He looked up in surprise as I entered the room and stopped in front of his desk, a little winded. "Something very important has been stolen from our room," I said before he could ask. "I need you to lock down the school immediately such that nothing will leave the school, in a magical _or_ muggle fashion."

He seemed to accept my request on face value, and pulled out his wand. He twirled it in a strangely jerky fashion and muttered a short incantation under his breath; I blinked as I felt the pulse of chakra pass me, and then he seemed to slump a little in the chair. He looked slightly more tired, and certainly older than before. "May I ask what all this is about?" he said solemnly. "I have no doubt that some of our students will have something to say when the shipment of food for breakfast does not come in tomorrow."

"Like I said, something was stolen," I said, putting my mask on. "And like I _also_ said, it's very important that we get it back quickly. Naruto is calling in a specialist who should be here soon, so we can get him to search the castle easily. Until then, we need to go through the professors' possessions. The spells that were used to break into our room were rather high-power and probably dark, so searching the house quarters won't be necessary yet."

Albus looked mildly surprised. "What could it possibly be that you would risk bringing it with you, but go through such trouble to get it back?" he asked, and I frowned at his tone of voice – I was about tired of this conversation, and as much as I knew he had a right to ask these questions didn't mean that I liked answering them.

So eventually I answered, "It was a scroll of techniques that I had intended to study while I was here. I originally had it sealed up pretty tightly, and once I saw that all you wizards have strangely unbalanced chakra I felt fairly safe with it where it was. Of course I had never studied dark magic, so I didn't know there was actually a spell that could get it out." He had a look like he was going to ask exactly _what_ techniques the scroll contained, so I beat him to it. "There were many different techniques, though probably the most worrisome were those concerning demons and artificial immortality."

Conveniently enough, Naruto appeared before he could ask for more details, and said, _"Neji will be here in a couple hours. He was in the United Kingdom by chance with Temari, so she's flying him here."_ To Albus he said, "Our friend will be here in a few hours." He flashed a somewhat insincere smile and slipped his mask back on.

I bowed shortly to Albus, and said, "Then we will go about searching the professors' quarters, sir. With your permission, of course. I imagine that not too many of them are asleep yet." He obviously wasn't happy with my tone, but in my experience it was pretty hard to argue with a straight-faced mask, and he agreed. Naruto and I left immediately – I decided that we should start with Umbridge's office, just because I didn't like her very much.

-

It was almost 11 o'clock that night and Naruto and I had just finished with the potion master's quarters when I felt a flare of somewhat familiar chakra. Naruto had noticed it too, I noticed, and so we went back up to the entrance hall to greet Neji and Temari, who had just arrived.

Temari didn't look much different – her hair was longer and straighter, even if it was still tied in four ponytails, and she was wearing the kind of clothes that were popular in America – and Neji hadn't much changed either, except his hair was tied up in a bun. I guessed that it must have gotten quite a bit longer for him to bother putting it up, since he did look really girly like that. I only almost laughed. Naruto beat me to it by saying, _"Thanks for coming so fast, Neji. I realize it must be a pain. Do you remember the scrolls from Orochimaru's hideout?"_ Neji nodded; they were rather distinctive, after all, with the bright purple, scaled covers. _"That's what we're looking for. There's… Two, right Sasuke?"_

"_Three,"_ I corrected. _"We looked through the teachers' rooms pretty thoroughly, but obviously we couldn't look __**that**__ thoroughly. And somebody might just have it with them…"_ Neji nodded, and closed his eyes. I felt the soft pulse of chakra as he activated the Byakugan and began his search.

A couple minutes later, he said quietly, _"I found them. They're in the possession of a woman… er… short, pink, looks sort of like one of Naruto's summons?"_ Naruto snorted, and I recognized the description as Umbridge. Should have known it would be her; trust the Ministry of Magic to dig through our rooms on the first day of classes. _"She's in a room on the first floor."_

"_It'll be her classroom,"_ I said firmly. _"Let's go before she finds something that we'd rather she didn't."_ Naruto and I led the way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, with Neji every once in a while turning his Byakugan back on to make sure we were going in the right direction.

We reached the classroom just as the door opened and Umbridge bustled out. She looked surprised to see us for a minute – apparently didn't recognize us for a second – and then drew herself up to spit out a complete tirade. "I would like to know the meaning of these documents," she said, and I thought it sounded rather ridiculous, her attempt at fury when her voice sounded as squeaky as it always did. "From what I read, they contain information on very dark techniques! Please explain yourselves immediately!" She shook the scrolls in my face.

Seemingly composed, I reached forward and plucked the scrolls out of her grasp. "It's top-secret information which would never have been stolen if you had not been so nosy," I said, irked even if it didn't show with my mask. "I took the proper cautions when it was stolen. I ought to get Albus to erase your memory of the contents."

She immediately paled, though under the blush she had put on her cheeks it was actually the spike in her chakra that told me so. "No no no no, that's hardly necessary." _Kudos for not stuttering_, I thought. "Of course, I myself am not a dark wizard, so it's not as if I would use it—" She giggled nervously.

"You don't seem to understand the culture we come from, madam," Naruto said, taking a step forward. "If you know a secret that you don't need to know, then you are immediately a security risk. Our enemies would have no problems with torturing you to get that information. So do you have any proof that you are trustworthy?"

I was satisfied with Naruto scaring her half to death for the time being, so I sidled away with Neji and Temari for a second. Before I got a chance to ask the question that I needed to ask, Neji said, _"So I've been meaning to say… These people all have strangely distorted chakra coils. Is there a reason for it?"_

"_Oh, so that's what it is?"_ I said, surprised. _"Can you describe it more precisely? Or rather, would it even be possible to use jutsu like that?"_ Temari looked a little lost, and I quickly promised to explain.

Neji activated the Byakugan again and took a long look at Umbridge. _"The coils are for the most part in the same place, except… at the very top, one of the main coils swoops outwards towards her right shoulder. When attempting to use a jutsu, the chakra would be imbalanced internally, but if you learned to compensate for that properly, then yes, it would probably work."_ He shut his eyes and leaned against the wall, and I assumed that he was looking around the school.

To Temari I said, _"Ever since I saw the Headmaster, I sort of knew that something was off about their chakra, but since I don't have the Byakugan I couldn't really tell what was wrong. Obviously they had chakra, because they use it in their own techniques… And this was an ideal opportunity for Neji to take a look at it, too."_

I looked away suddenly as I felt Naruto's chakra spike in anger; I looked over to see him say, "Then I will personally hold you responsible for whatever destruction comes at the fault of those techniques. Please tell the Minister yourself, _madam_." He turned away sharply, and the rest of us followed him rather mockingly away from her to the stairs. As soon as we were out of earshot he said, _"She's working directly for the Minister, and that's why she believes she's safe from all that. Can't see past the walls, that woman. We have to go tell Albus that he can drop the barrier."_

"_It's dilemma averted, then,"_ Temari said smartly. _"Can I leave? I have a mission in Russia that Neji and I need to get to pretty soon."_ Naruto nodded agreeably, and I bid the two of them goodbye as they turned to go back the other way.

As we finally returned to our room that night, after Albus had fixed the door and Naruto had set up the seal again, and we were both lying there unable to sleep, I said, _"In a perfect world, she won't get tortured and won't mention it to anyone. God knows this world never works out anything close to that."_ I heard Naruto's snort of laughter and couldn't help but smile.

"_Yeah, well,"_ he said, _"Orochimaru actually employed most of those techniques, and we're not dead yet. And Akatsuki is as good as neutered of their plan with the bijuu, what with the statue breaking… I'd like to think we have it pretty good."_ In spite of his good reasoning, I had a distinct sense of foreboding as I drifted asleep.

-

The second day of classes at Hogwarts dawned slightly better than the first had. Of course any day that I didn't wake up wrapped in the sheets was better than that day had been, so it wasn't saying much. Naruto was already gone when I got up, and I easily found Potter on his way into the Great Hall for breakfast. For the most part I chose to stay out of the way, and at one point I spotted Naruto behind Albus's chair at the staff table, leaned over his shoulder and probably whispering something, since Albus was nodding in agreement as he ate.

I paid little attention to what was going on in Potter's classes that day, because he didn't have Umbridge's class on that day and as far as I was concerned she was the biggest threat to the school for what she knew now, whether she would do something directly or it would happen indirectly I didn't care or know. But of course, in the end I had to sit through his detention, too; needless to say I wasn't looking forward to it. The _only_ upside to spending this much time with the brat was that I knew enough about his mannerisms to take his place for any amount of time necessary, and I knew his chakra well enough that I would never be anywhere near suspicious enough to hit him in the dark. And as most people who know me could attest to, that much is an honor that is almost exclusively reserved for Naruto.

The detention started normally enough – 'Come in, Mr. Potter.' 'Sit down, Mr. Potter.' 'Write lines, Mr. Potter.' It seemed as if she knew I was watching her, the way she glanced surreptitiously around the room… though of course she never glanced at the wall of plates, where the stringy red designs around one of the plates seemed to have curled into the shapes of eyes. I watched as Potter sat down and picked up the quill and began writing the sentence over and over again, every once in a while twitching and looking around; I distinctly felt the flicker in his chakra at the same time, and the smug glow from Umbridge seemed only to grow.

Eventually I felt a particularly sharp spike in Potter's chakra that seemed to be forcibly mellowed very quickly, and I glanced down at him; I was very much surprised to see that the back of his hand looked rather like Naruto's skin when he had just recovered very quickly from a shallow wound: red and a little puffy, it was something that I had seen countless times before.

At that time I didn't even consider stopping Umbridge's 'detention' in its tracks, because in the shinobi it was a relatively weak punishment for a comparatively foul offense. But during the rest of the week I couldn't figure out why it was nagging at me, that thing about the detention… And on Friday I finally realized why exactly it was bugging me. This _wasn't_ the shinobi world, and to someone like Harry who had never had the physical training to deal with punishment like that, it wasn't an appropriate level of punishment.

I immediately confronted Umbridge about it – about where she got the permission to carry out such a stringent punishment for an offense that warranted little more than normal writing lines. About where she got the quill, because it certainly _seemed_ like a dark artifact. "And because frankly, teenagers are prone to lie about what they wish to lie about, and when it's a ploy for recognition then all you must do is ignore it and discourage their speaking out," I said resolutely.

The toady woman puffed herself up a little (I imagined her flicking out her yard-long tongue and sticking it to my mask) and responded harshly, "I am a professor here, and I am as such allowed to dole out the punishment that I see fit. I am raising these children to join the real world, and where will they go if they lie about ridiculous things like that? Nowhere!"

"So isn't it too bad that you don't apply that to the subject you were actually hired to teach?" I snipped back at her. "If what you say about defensive spells rings true with anything else, then if you have them read a book about why lying is bad, then they will accept it and stop." Her face nearly matched her bright pink cardigan by the time I finished my sentence.

She promptly brought out her threatening, pudgy finger and shoved it in my face rudely (I didn't flinch and she seemed put out by my mask), and began wagging it back and forth to get my attention; "Now see here, young man! I have the power of the Ministry of Magic backing my presence here at Hogwarts! You who has not received any magical training whatsoever does not have the right to complain!"

I smiled slightly behind my mask, and tilted my head curiously to the right. "What in the world does my lack of magical training mean to anyone? I'm not a mutated freak so it doesn't particularly matter to me, and I'm sure that anyone would be satisfied with a short duel to prove my competence." She realized that she had stepped on a landmine. "Please, give me a reason to report this to Albus or to the… more _public_ sections of the Ministry. I would be more than happy to oblige, if you wouldn't mind losing your position. I could have you gone by Monday."

Reflecting on the conversation, I realized that my choice of words could have been better… but smugness does that to one. She made a frowning, crinkled expression like she was trying to prevent herself from exploding, and spun around and marched off. I chuckled and zipped off to make sure that Potter was in bed before turning down to the kitchens for a little while.

-

I stared in disgust at the sheet of paper tacked to the message board. _"That awful, awful woman,"_ I muttered. _"She takes everything so bleeding seriously…!"_ The board was practically covered by a poster, the top of which read 'Educational Decree 24.' The body of the text proclaimed that Dolores Umbridge was the Hogwarts High Inquisitor (an obviously made-up title; I had read an immense amount of Hogwarts history and never heard the term once), and had the power to judge whether a teacher was up to par, and whether any other resident of Hogwarts was an outstanding threat.

_She very much means me,_ I thought as I stared at the last part – outstanding threat, indeed! I heard Naruto come up behind me, and commented dryly, _"She took to heart what I said about having her gone by Monday. This was done yesterday."_

He read it quickly, and at the short growl that he quickly turned into a clearing of his throat, I snorted in laughter. _"So we should expect her to do more going through our stuff then?"_ he said, voice far less bitter than I had expected. _"Well, I'm a little annoyed she didn't get this out of the way before term started, but we should have known it would happen sooner or later."_ I just shrugged and turned away from the board. Naruto glanced at me, and I was a little embarrassed by the spike of amusement in his chakra. _"Do you want to go eat, then? You still have some time before classes start."_

Of course, we went to breakfast then, and it was after that, on our way back to our room that Umbridge appeared. She was looking as ridiculous as ever, and the only real change was the clipboard that she clung to now. "I have some questions to ask you boys as the High Inquisitor," she said squeakily. "Do you have time? Of course you do! Come along then." She reached out for my wrist, though I moved it out of her reach, and she stared at me for a second before turning and leading us into an empty classroom.

"You realize that I don't actually have time for this," I said flatly, sitting down in the desk that she levitated over for me. "It's fine, I will simply hold you accountable." She frowned deeply (I once again imagined her sticky tongue flinging out at me), and I saw Naruto's shoulders hunch slightly in laughter.

The toady professor reorganized herself for a moment, and then began as if I had never spoken. "As the High Inquisitor it is part of my job to assess possible threats to the safety of the Hogwarts students and staff. I will begin my questioning now." She stared between us (I imagined her eyes blinking over with transparent film like an alligator's) and then continued. "Why did you decide to work for Albus Dumbledore instead of, perhaps, You-Know-Who's followers?"

Naruto spoke first; "Because Albus approached us first, with an appropriate sum. Had Voldemort's buddies appeared first with an equivalent or better deal, we probably would have sided with them."

Umbridge's eyebrows folded together momentarily, and she asked, "If his followers were to appear now and offer you a far superior deal, would you take it?"

"No," I said quickly, because I wasn't sure what Naruto would have said to that. "The contract is set in stone now, and our end of the bargain will be upheld as long as his end is, or until the contract runs out. Even after that, we probably would not accept a deal from that group." I glanced at Naruto, and he nodded ever so slightly, saying that he agreed.

Slowly it seemed that Umbridge was growing more and more frustrated with us. "In those scrolls there were two words that I could not get a very clear translation on; please explain what _bijuu_ and _jinchuuriki_ mean."

I smiled at Naruto's response; "Horrible pronunciation aside," he began, making a flippant gesture and turning his head away, "The word _bijuu_ refers to the nine demons in our world. It translates pretty much as 'tailed beasts,' because the demons are identified by the number of tails that they have – one through nine. And _jinchuuriki_ is the name for the container of one of these demons, into which it is sealed using shinobi techniques. Usually the _jinchuuriki_ is a newborn child, for reasons that I don't care to explain to you."

The explanation was followed by several seconds of loud scribbling and then Umbridge looked up again. "The scroll said that you are one such _jinchuuriki_." I swore loudly, and quite clearly felt the spike in Naruto's chakra that felt suspiciously like the Kyuubi's. Umbridge continued on, undeterred. "I would like a demonstration of exactly what power the demon has."

Naruto immediately turned to look at me, and I felt bad; _"I'm sorry, Naruto,"_ I responded guiltily, though I was still furious at Umbridge for bringing the subject up. _"I had never read it all the way through, I didn't know that your name was mentioned."_

He accepted my apology, though I could still feel his unease as he said to Umbridge, "I apologize, but I will have to refuse. The Kyuubi – the nine-tailed demon, the one that it is sealed in me – is not something to be… demonstrated. While I am not using his power I can keep control of him, but it's more iffy when I actually use that power. If we are all incredibly unlucky you may see it someday, though I pray not."

At that moment I remembered a question that I had thought of a while ago but never had the time to ask. _"Though, Naruto… How many tails can you control now? I remember when we fought in the Valley of the End, you only used one… but later on I saw you use three."_

"_The maximum is seven,"_ he said nervously. _"And if I go that high it's very hard to keep the eighth from appearing."_ To Umbridge, who was busy writing, he said, "Are you done, then? I have things to do."

The High Inquisitor looked up from her clipboard momentarily, and then answered as she finished her writing. "Just one more question. Where exactly did you come from originally? The locations mentioned in those scrolls do not exist in the world today."

This time I answered. "The continent that we were originally from was destroyed by a war, so everyone still alive made an exodus, and we landed in Japan. We've since spread out all over the world, well enough that you would be hard-put to pick us out." I stood up as she continued her writing, and promptly left; Naruto excused himself slightly more politely, and followed me out. Outside I said, _"I can't wait until somebody steps on her toes hard enough for her to realize she isn't sitting in a chair miles off the ground. I'd like to do it myself, even."_ Naruto laughed at me, shoved me on the shoulder, and promptly disappeared.

I honestly couldn't wait for something to happen already. Watching kids go about their classes… was not exactly what I had anticipated when I heard that there was an actual foe out there. Too bad he had yet to show up.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto.

AN: Yeah… well here we are at chapter six. I've started a poll on my profile asking whether or not you think there should be a sequel, which will be left open until the part of the story that actually depends on that answer gets here. Get your vote in soon, because little things will start changing according to the answers as we go along.

And just to warn you: there's a lot of swearing in this chapter. You'll see.

* * *

"_So do you have any idea what this event is about?"_ Naruto asked me quietly as we stopped in front of the Hogwarts gates. I watched the students filter one by one through the gates, and Naruto elbowed me in the side. _"Sorry if I've been out of the loop! Why is everybody leaving school?"_

I shook my head and said, _"It's a one-day vacation. Most of the students get to go into the village for the day."_ He followed me to the gates, where Filch was prodding the students with a large, thick rod that seemed to work like a magical metal-detector. It seemed like a fairly good safety precaution, but I wasn't sure why he was scanning them for whatever he was scanning them for on the way _out_. Wouldn't it be more productive to search for dangerous objects on the way back in?

Naruto and I were both going to be in the village with the students, since there was a lot of trouble that they could get into on a day like this without the supervision of an enclosed space. The village had an enchanting sort of air to it, like it was the sort of place that should have always been covered in snow. There was a warm-looking pub, a candy store, a joke shop, and all sorts of other little places.

My own enjoyment of the time was perhaps limited by constantly having to keep Potter and his trio in the corner of my eye; from the beginning they apparently had somewhere to be, which was a little annoying. I would have liked for Naruto to come with me for just today, since it was technically a holiday, but he explained (rather apologetically) that he had to look around the village at least this time. So in the end I trudged off after my charge feeling strangely disappointed.

The trio eventually came to a rather suspicious looking pub called the Hogshead, and I was immediately put on edge, because it looked like the kind of place you would find rogue shinobi in. Potter, Granger, and Weasley also looked a little cautious, but determined all the same (I hated that sort of expression, it was bound to get them into trouble, and me by proxy). They ordered drinks and took their seats at one of the tables; I myself cast a genjutsu to make myself invisible and took a seat on the ceiling.

They talked quietly for a while, and I was glad that I couldn't really hear what they were saying, so of course the people who were further away and had less training at eavesdropping wouldn't be listening in on their whispered conversation either. Eventually, I heard the door open and saw several other Hogwarts students milling around outside. They pushed and shoved their way inside, and I recognized the faces of many of them from the Gryffindor common room, but there were some from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw too that I couldn't quite put a name to.

As soon as the group had settled in, seemingly with Potter and friends at the front – I was beginning to wonder what exactly this meeting was supposed to be about – and Granger started to make a speech. I tuned her out for the most part, preoccupied with checking out each of the people in the bar now, because certainly with this big of a group they were doing _something_ somewhat illegal. When I heard her say the words "… study Defense Against the Dark Arts," I looked up suddenly (technically it was down since I was sitting upside-down), and my eyes just barely caught the man with the wrapped-up head turn just slightly in his seat, and hesitate for a second in the middle of the shot he was throwing back.

That small movement was enough to make me tune in both to what was actually being said and the reactions of the other people in the bar. "… Really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us, because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts… Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands." _So __**that's**__ what you've been scheming about,_ I thought, rather satisfied. It seemed like a good endeavor (although I may have been naturally biased against Umbridge). I still kept my eyes on the others in the bar, though, knowing that talking about something like this in a _place_ like this could spell disaster with ease.

The rest of the meeting was of little interest to me after I had discovered their main purpose, and I only paid them half an ear; the rest was spent on watching every miniscule movement that the other occupants of the bar made and tried to interpret their reactions to what was said. The only problem with that was that by the time the students dispersed back into Hogsmeade, I had convinced myself that the bandaged man had reacted at the beginning of the meeting out of hearing a familiar phrase, and the veiled witch had been an extremely avid reader of tabloids.

I followed Potter and friends around for the rest of the day and just barely caught Naruto on their way back through the gates. I began to explain their get-together briefly, and he made a hand-gesture for 'we'll talk more later' before flickering away in the direction of the castle. I just shook my head and followed Potter in that direction, too, though I had to match their ever-sluggish pace in doing so. This mission was really starting to piss me off.

-

That evening, I met Naruto in our room with a rather bad mood hanging about; Peeves had dumped something unidentifiable but very smelly over my head, but I wouldn't be able to use the bath until after curfew, so I was stuck sitting around and being utterly light-fingered about everything I touched for a few more hours. Naruto sat down on the edge of the bed and waited surprisingly patiently for me to explain what Potter's secret rendezvous had been about earlier that day.

As I explained what had happened in detail, I realized that I was actually very peeved about more than just having to play hide-and-go-seek with Potter and friends. Actually, the longer I thought about it, the more I thought that the thing I was actually most upset about was Naruto being unable to come with me on the day off. Practically, I knew that a vacation for the students meant more work for us, but I still would have really liked for Naruto to be there, instead of having to explain all this after the fact.

He, too, seemed to realize what I was on edge about, because at the end he said, "Well let me know when their first meeting is, and we'll go together. It's a promise." He must not have noticed the doubtful look that I gave him, because he turned back to sharpening his katana. But after that I did make a distinct effort to keep a closer eye on Potter, so I would be able to tell when the meeting would be.

I heard it on the ninth of October, during a soggy lunch break; he muttered the date and time to the captain of his Quidditch team whose name I was absolutely horrible about remembering, and told her to spread it to the others. I ducked out of the Great Hall for a few minutes to call Naruto and whisper it to him – _"Tonight at seven thirty, in the Necessity Room. Don't be late, all right?"_ He laughed and nodded, rather too dismissive for my tastes, and disappeared again.

-

In the end, he wasn't late at all; he even met me halfway there, and we talked in whispers as we followed Potter, Granger, and Weasley to the seventh floor. I watched in amusement as they trudged back and forth in front of the wall three times, and then the door appeared abruptly, just as it had every time Naruto and I had used it. When they opened the door we zipped inside quickly and set up camp in the far corner. They milled around for a while before people began to show up, and I spent the time squinting at the strange, foggy mirror – I was fairly sure I saw my own silhouette in it, and nobody but Naruto could have hair so blonde that it showed up even in a silhouette.

When the other people began to arrive, it began to get quiet and much more like an actual meeting than a gathering of friends like I had more or less expected it to turn out. When they began casting spells, though, we moved up to the ceiling, to make sure that we didn't get hit. The genjutsu that we used – at least that I used – when hiding around the castle was rather soft to keep from using up a lot of chakra, and getting hit by pretty much anything would dispel it.

At one point, though, a particularly wayward spell did fly out and hit Naruto; with the greatest of luck it wasn't an offensive spell which would certainly have broken the genjutsu but was simply the disarming spell, and so the only effect was that a couple senbon slid out of his vest and flew half-hearted towards the caster, though they fell lamely to the floor a few feet away.

The whole room immediately fell silent. Potter marched over and picked up the senbons, though he apparently didn't recognize them. To the one who had cast the spell he asked which direction he had shot it in, and unfortunately the boy pointed directly at us. We slid silently out of that corner, but the detection spell that Hermione cast into that corner seemed to be area of effect, because I felt the thin genjutsu melt off of me.

Gracefully accepting defeat, we both stepped to the floor. I felt rather annoyed that we had been caught at all, but Naruto elbowed me; he obviously meant, _we can turn this to our advantage, so don't be a grump_. By that time pretty much everybody was panicking, thinking that they had been found out and would be reported to Umbridge, while Potter and Weasley were trying to calm them down and Granger demanded, "Why did you sneak in? What are you planning to do?"

I moved around her to pick up the three senbon that were laying forgotten on the floor as Naruto answered her. "It seemed like an interesting thing, that's all. This many students from three different houses entering the Necessity Room at the same time… Well, you have to wonder. But I'm glad to see that it's nothing dangerous! A somewhat outside-the-rules secret defense club, that almost sounds like fun." To me, he called, "Sasuke! Doesn't it remind you of training with Anko behind Kaka-sensei's back?"

For a moment I was a little confused about what he said because we had never done anything of the sort, but then I realized that he wanted them to invite us to join their little group, so I responded, "A little. But then, she only tutored us in physical defense, not any fancy techniques. Go with the basics, I suppose."

I glanced slyly at Harry, and saw the thoughtful look in his eyes as I returned to Naruto and handed him the senbon. Nobody said any thing, and eventually Naruto said, "Well, if you're going to kick us out already…"

But before we had even turned around to leave Potter popped up and said, "Wait!" We paused, and I turned back slightly. "You… sound fairly professional about all this… so would you like to help us a little?"

To Naruto I muttered, _"You're pretty sly. Can you really take that much time out of your schedule?"_ He just nodded dismissively, and I felt another surge of irritation at that kind of response.

"Since you offered," he said airily, "I think I'll take you up on it. Of course, we can't teach you lot on anywhere near the same level, but it might be useful for you to have some way to defend yourselves if you lose your wand. Though it's almost curfew time, and we should probably continue this next time."

So with those words Potter returned to addressing everybody else about when the next meeting would be, and Granger made Naruto and I sign their list. She probably didn't realize it, but I could feel the chakra she had put into that piece of paper, though I didn't know exactly what she had done.

In the end the agreement was set for the same day every week, at the same time, and that seemed to work well with everybody else's schedule. The meeting ended on a contented note, and though Naruto and I left with the rest of the students, of course I had to double back to walk Potter, Granger, and Weasley back to their dormitory.

-

October 10 dawned with Naruto and I in the kitchen, muttering to each other over breakfast. _"Look, it's your birthday, if you're feeling bad then just take the day off,"_ I said quietly to Naruto, who was staring miserably at his steadily-cooling eggs.

"_But it's all his fault,"_ he bemoaned, prodding the sausage half-heartedly. _"Doing that would be admitting that he has even that much power over me. And I promised everyone that I wouldn't let the Kyuubi get the better of me. That means not ever."_

I sighed, and took another bite of my hash browns, before grumbling, _"At least switch places with me today. They don't get into much trouble, so it should give you a little bit of downtime."_ He agreed reluctantly, and gave me a short list of what he had intended to do around the school that day. It was surprisingly short – a checkup of the student dormitories and a thorough inspection of the grounds, including the Forbidden Forest – so I wondered if it took a particularly long time or if there just wasn't much to do.

As it turned out, it was the former; by the time I was finished with the dormitories, it was already nearly noon, so I stopped for a quick lunch in the kitchens. I was surprisingly hungry, and I supposed it was simply because I actually had something to do today, instead of following kids around all day.

I was also enjoying being outside and really having something to do; from the lake to the top of the Quidditch pitch, the sky was big and empty and starting to get really cold, but it was a welcome difference for the perennially-hot Los Angeles and the nearly tropical climate of the Fire Country. And of course there was the Forbidden Forest, which was almost the equivalent of the Forest of Death had been, back in the Chuunin exams so long ago.

Out in that forest I could almost forget what time it was, except for the sun overhead when I left the dense canopy for a moment to check my position by the white castle sticking up on a hill. I didn't hurry through the task, certainly, and just spent time imagining myself back on some incredibly-dangerous wartime mission, being chased by or chasing somebody whose face I hoped never to see, generally having a good time of myself but still making sure to do my job.

Around five o'clock, getting on towards evening, I began feeling a flicker of a chakra signature that I didn't recognize, or at least couldn't put a name to immediately. But the more often I felt it, the more concerned I got; I may not have recognized it, but it was vaguely familiar enough to be worrisome, and there was no crooked, unbalanced feeling to it like I had come to expect from wizards.

In fact, it was exactly like a shinobi's. The thought made me shiver, and I stopped right where I was on the tree branch and closed my eyes, searching for the chakra signature again. Yes, it was definitely strong enough and balanced enough to belong to a shinobi. That was all I could tell, though, so I cast a slightly stronger genjutsu over myself and waited for somebody to appear.

I had to wait for less time than I had estimated, before two people stumbled into the clearing, arguing very loudly. _"God, Kakuzu, you're such a shitty tracker! You lost him? Just a second ago you said he was right in front of us!"_

"_He was,"_ a slow, deep voice responded from behind the taller of the two's mask. _"Either he died or he used a genjutsu. Figure it out already, moron."_

I already recognized them; Hidan and Kakuzu, the two from Akatsuki who had been the most active during the war. The rest had been significantly hidden away, I knew now that they had been preparing to leave the hidden continent, but these two had been out in the thick of it and acting bounty hunter for whoever they cared to.

Warily, I squashed my chakra down quickly so even as they passed by me they didn't feel me. I glanced at their retreating backs and, edgy to leave, released the genjutsu and leapt for the nearest tree, only to hear the whistle of Hidan's scythe blade extending and just barely missing my leg.

Smoothly, I landed on the branch and spun around, a kunai already halfway there and my hands halfway through the seals for a more contained katon. Though even as I breathed the chakra out, I was careful not to let go of the tight hold I had on the rest of my chakra signature, for fear of alerting Naruto in the middle of his well-deserved birthday break.

Kakuzu dodged the fire casually (he had been mostly out of range anyway, so it looked totally accidental), and Hidan didn't even move; when it cleared, it turned out that surprisingly little of his clothing had been burned. Goodness knows the man already wore little enough. He just grinned at me and set about the little ritual that I had, to my great luck, only ever heard described, and I thought it was about time to high-tail it out of there. My specialty was speed, and even Hidan himself claimed to be the slowest-attacking member of the Akatsuki, though I wasn't sure what to expect from Kakuzu.

I had heard very little about Kakuzu except for the random gibbering of those nearly dead; pretty much all I ever heard was 'element.' It was very little to go by, so I wanted to keep my distance for the time being. That meant katon jutsu; I rarely found a situation that they weren't useful in, and I had chidori if worst came to worst, but that was an up-close and personal sort of attack, and he seemed like a close-range person.

So I held out for a while, dodging around and making use of having mapped some of the terrain with my Sharingan to lead him into bad spots. He never seemed to attack me, so I was a little worried about what he could be planning – until my foot slipped on a wet branch, and the next thing I knew something hard, fast, and black had cut my arm. I immediately pressed one hand to it, quickly assessing the damage and then looking around for what had caused it.

Nothing. There was no sign as to what could have cut me, besides the brief flicker that I had seen from Kakuzu. He wasn't really that fast, was he? So it was middle-range, but easy to predict? I blinked, and the tomoe in my now red eyes spun a couple times half-heartedly. He flickered back and forth again, and I saw that all that was moving was his arm – and then suddenly there was a black strip aimed right at my side, which I quickly rolled away from, and took the blow somewhere around the elbow of my already cut arm. I swore quietly, and quickly made the seals for summoning; I bit my thumb and pressed it to the tree next to me, where snakes began to blossom out of as if the tree had been full of them the entire time. I continued to back up, and the purple, hissing mass tumbled towards him, giving me enough time to lay the cut skin back over my wound to keep from losing too much blood. I had nothing to tie it with.

All the same, just that was enough to let me set into a longer string of seals for a larger jutsu, this time a raiton. As the glittering bolts practically made a waterfall towards him, I took the opportunity to make a hasty halfway retreat and gain a good footing. The next katon jutsu, which I hoped would be the last I had to use, was going to take a little while.

When Kakuzu came into the clearing, hardly hurt at all, I was rather put off – he canceled it completely? That should have been impossible! – but I knew better than to stop in the middle of a string of hand-seals this long. I finished at long last, and whispered the name as I felt the rush of chakra running into the ground through my feet.

Seconds later, Kakuzu had obviously clued into what was going on, as I went about ripping off of a piece of my shirt to tie around my arm. He hissed angrily, and I watched in satisfaction as the ground suddenly flared up in a circle around him, the flames curling in to make a distorted semi-sphere with him captured in the middle. A thick black ribbon of something flashed out of the flame, still dreadfully hot from the flames, and wrapped tightly around my leg.

It hauled me up in the air and threw me against a tree, and I felt before I saw the bloody ring it left around my ankle. A minute later there was the strong scent of sea water, and suddenly the flames still encircling Kakuzu were dampened down completely. I was satisfied that at least he looked hurt, from the way he stood funny.

Before either of us moved again, Hidan stepped out of the trees and glared at me. _"Let's just go, dumb-fuck Kakuzu. Much longer and we're going to have both of them on our hands. Leader-sama wanted us to finish up much fucking quicker than this, anyway."_ Kakuzu looked reluctant, but he eventually turned away.

I narrowed my eyes, and quickly – before they had a chance to change their minds – pulled off a replacement, leaving a rather bewildered larger-than-normal spider in my place, and me limping through the trees on my way back to Hogwarts. _I'm glad I made Naruto take the day in the castle,_ I thought as I flipped far above the forest floor to get a look above the canopy at the white castle. _How in the world did the Akatsuki find us here?_

-

"_What the hell happened to you, Sasuke?"_ was the first thing Naruto demanded to know when he saw me that night. He tried to grab my arm, but I flinched away – I had only just gotten it to heal over. _"Wh- Nothing around here would be able to hurt you! What's going on?"_

"_I met Hidan and Kakuzu in the Forbidden Forest,"_ I grumbled, going over to my suitcase and digging around for a roll of bandages. I found them and sat down on the edge of the bed to try to tie it around my arm. _"Managed to get away from Hidan, but Kakuzu followed me for a while."_

Naruto swore loudly, and then came over to help me with the bandages. _"Why didn't you signal me?"_ he asked, quieter than I imagine I would have been in that situation. _"We could definitely have handled them together!"_

He happened to pull it a little tight, and I winced – he immediately slacked the bandage a little, and finished tying it. As he bent down to work on the one around my leg, I muttered, _"Because you weren't feeling good. On this day in particular, things could have gone badly fighting someone as strong as those two. I didn't die, right?"_

Apparently, that was the wrong answer. He yanked the knot tight, and then leaned up to stare right at me, obviously angry. _"Sasuke,"_ he growled, grabbing the front of my jacket, _"You are not a one-man team. Or a rogue or a loner or whatever the hell you think you are when you do shit like that!" _With his anger I half expected to see his pupils elongated into slits, but the only thing out of place in his eyes were the angry tears dripping on my shirt. _"You're my best, first, and nearly __**only**__ friend, so take responsibility!"_

I narrowed my eyes and looked away; I felt like such an asshole, he was crying and I hadn't cried since the Valley of the End when he shed tears for everyone who fell whether they were on our side or not. I turned away, embarrassed by my impassiveness. _"I didn't think that—"_

"_Of course you didn't!"_ he practically shouted, and when I refused to look at him he shook me. _"Just because of Kyuubi… no, because of him – I don't want that bastard to be what's between us!" _He had stopped crying already, and I almost missed his next words; _"… The only thing that should be between us is too much open space."_

Immediately, I turned right back to meet his eyes; he definitely looked more subdued than I had expected, but everything else said that he had meant that statement exactly the way I heard it. And the opportunity that I hadn't realized I was looking for opened up, so I quickly leaned forward and pressed our lips together firmly.

Although I would have liked to describe my first kiss as long, romantic, and a prelude to something much deeper, it was actually… short, rather nostalgic, and cut off suddenly as we both pulled apart to say, _"I like_—!" and then stutter at each other for several seconds. The second one, which was a mutual effort to blow off the awkward silence, was definitely a little better.

We parted from this one a little short of breath, and it certainly wasn't awkward as we just stared at each other for a little bit. Naruto finally ended the silence by laughing and saying, _"I'd thank you for my first kiss, but technically that's been gone since we were twelve, huh?" _I flushed a little, now remembering why I had felt so nostalgic, but I quickly composed myself.

"_I should hardly admit to something like that_," I said, rather more snobbish-sounding than intended. So I fixed the problem by adding, _"I'm serious about this. I don't know anything about relationships, but I mean it."_

Naruto nodded, obviously very solemn; _"Me too. So next time, let me know immediately when something happens, even if I have a hundred-degree fever and purple boils covering painful areas."_ I snorted, imagining Naruto trying to make hand seals with purple lumps on his hands. He whacked me pretty gentle, and said indignantly, _"I'm not joking! Would you or wouldn't you?"_

I did my best to straighten my face and answer him properly, but he immediately puffed his cheeks out and made fish-lips – a goldfish would have more pride than this man – and all I could do was laugh. I leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, though he intercepted me with his mouth, and we spent several more hours that night laughing than we did sleeping.

And when I woke up the next morning in Naruto's nest of a bed, with his arm around my stomach and firmly gripping the back of my shirt, it was a hell of a lot more right than anything else in that school was.

* * *

Tomoe: the black dots in the middle of the Sharingan.


End file.
